Agency stint pays off in new role

Former advertising industry mainstay Patee Sarasin's latest initiative will see Nok Air passengers in Phuket check-in their luggage on the beach and receive their boarding passes from swimsuit-clad airline officials. "To build a brand on a low budget, we have to come up with a lot of concepts, concepts that people want to talk about and know about," says the CEO of Thai Airways' no-frills subsidiary. The former CEO of Bates has been busy doing just that in the three months since the airline's launch. Among the more serious insignia usually seen on rival aircraft, the big yellow beak on Nok Air's nose certainly stands out, as did the televised Nok Hunt -- picked up by CNN -- where air stewardesses were voted in by viewers. And forget the internet, you can pick up these tickets from the 7-Eleven down the road. "We are a low-cost airline. We are cheap. But if you play only on price, that's all you're ever going to be able to talk about," says Patee. The no-frills airline "with an attitude" has been pushing several brand values, initially focusing on "tangible deliveries": high safety standards, punctuality and convenient payment. "The fundamentals of flying had to be perfect, and now that's in place, we are adding the fun, kicking off with Phuket," he says. Patee speaks with the easy confidence of a 17-year agency veteran who has yet to be stumped by a marketing challenge. "Being in an ad agency you deal with a lot of different clients, from clothing to energy drinks, from Spy wine coolers to DTAC," he says. "You learn a lot from that." The 42-year-old drew on those resources and more when he was recruited to the no-frills project, which at the time consisted of registered company Sky Asia, and a sheaf of research papers. Then the launch of Thai Air Asia -- a budget venture of Malaysia's Air Asia and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's Shin Corporation -- pushed the project into high gear. With only a brief flirtation with flying as a 20-something, Patee found himself with a mere nine months to prepare for the July take-off. The name Sky Asia was quickly discarded as irrelevant and intimidating to a domestic audience, the majority of whom had never flown. The name Nok, meaning bird in Thai, and the nickname of some four million Thais, hit Patee in the shower. "We wanted something that was easily remembered and recalled, and that people could relate to the flying experience," he says. "Some people were negative about it, some were positive, but it was definitely talked about around Asia." A "hands-on" manager, Patee is involved in every aspect of the operations, often flying on the planes, making inflight announcements, strategising marketing campaigns and presenting radio ads. "I like to go to the airport on weekends, talk to customers, ask them how they feel, whether they have any complaints." If they do, the figures don't show it. Load factors are averaging 70 per cent during the current low season. "We expected 40 to 50 per cent, and to build up from that, but it jumped." Patee now has his hands full with the next phase: taking the airline regional, beginning with Indo-china, China and India early next year; and increasing aircraft numbers from three to 13 by the end of 2005. "Our next aircraft is going to look different from the first two -- it'll be a parrot. Every time we launch an aircraft, it's going to be like a new launch to keep the momentum going," Patee says. "We will come up with something that differentiates us all the time, we will be creative in all our destinations, like our beach check-in. "It's going to be fun," he grins. "Just watch."