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Published on October 26, 2007

Chief commercial officer Thana Thienchariya said at a seminar that DTAC's most successful campaign is the "limited edition" of the twin-number SIM cards. The special edition owes its success to the limitation of its availability - just like Jatukam talismans made hordes of consumers desperate to own one.

DTAC recently launched 50,000 SIM cards under a "twin-number" limited edition. The special cards allow a pair of owners who buy twin numbers to call each other 24 hours for free. Selling for Bt99, the cards were all snapped up within days.

As the limited edition ran out of stock, the price of the SIM cards shot up to as much as Bt1,000 because suddenly they were comparable to rare commodities.

"Come to think of it, the success of the twin SIM cards is similar to the Jatukam phenomenon," Thana said. "Both the twin SIM cards and the talismans were launched in limited editions to create market appetite. If you tell customers that the products are unlimited, they will take them for granted as they feel that they can to buy SIM cards any time."

Thana's rivals from Advanced Info Service listened eagerly to his comments, especially as both AIS and DTAC face stiff competition from True Move in the market for children under 10.

AIS's Wichian Mektrakarn gave a tongue-in-cheek suggestion to Thana that now that DTAC's twin-number cards were sold out, perhaps DTAC and AIS should jointly launch a "married edition" to allow DTAC and AIS to phone across networks for free.

Well, it's understandable why AIS is desperate to find new marketing tactics. AIS presenters Dan-Beam, the boy-singer duo, announced yesterday that they would part ways soon. Dan-Beam are nonetheless contracted to appear in AIS commercials as a duo until February.

 AIS chief marketing officer Sanchai Tiewprasertkul said that, on the bright side, the news of the Dan-Beam break-up might benefit the firm's marketing campaign.

"Fans may pay much more attention to our ad campaign because they know that these two singers will no longer be together."

So, another example of Jatukam economics!

Limited availability is always a good marketing tactic.

Usanee@nationgroup.com

The Nation