Batey wins expanded Malee branding brief

BANGKOK: Established Thai producer of canned fruit and vegetable juices Malee Sampran has set an ambitious target of becoming a regional brand by 2003. The company has awarded Batey Advertising the brief to build up its regional brand profile. The agency has been handling Malee's Thai business for the past eight years. Malee has earmarked 10 per cent of its 100 million baht (USdollars 2.2 million) marketing budget to promote the brand in regional markets. Malee marketing manager, B. Adisak, said the company is in a strong position to push for a larger market share in established consumer markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia as well as the emerging Myanmar, and Vietnam markets. "We already have factories and distributors in all those markets," he said, pointing to the company's multinational distribution system headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. Adisak added: "The products are there, they just need to be promoted under the Malee brand name." The regional launch coincides with Malee's drive to bring its brand upmarket in Thailand. As part of its first step in building Malee into a regional brand, Batey is planning a regional print ad campaign. Yosrod Yod, Batey's account executive, said: "We're at the point where we're just introducing the company." Yod said the campaign would launch "very soon". Despite the very different characteristics of the various target countries, the print ads will be identical, at least for now. "The first couple of print ads will concentrate on very basic things - Malee's corporate background, the products, and the company's policies on using quality ingredients," Yod added. All print ads will be in English for the time being. "In Hong Kong and Singapore, most consumers speak and read English, and in countries like Vietnam and Myanmar, it's mostly educated people who buy pre-packaged consumer products like Malee," Yod added. No other media will be used in the initial campaign, with the exception of display booths and possibly some point-of-purchase literature. "We may have some banner flags promoting the URL of the Malee website, but it's mostly going to be colour print ads in magazines." This is in contrast to Malee's much more developed marketing campaigns in Thailand, where its products are well-branded and Batey's ads run in newspapers and on television and radio. Almost simultaneous with the regional campaign, Batey is launching a new round of ads on Thai media nationwide, to coincide with a major redesign of Malee's product packaging. "Our Thai campaign is much larger, focusing on brand development based on previous recognition," said Yod. Malee has retained its original logo and typeface in the new packaging, but increased its size. It also retained the original colour scheme, matching visual choices with specific fruits, but lightening the hues for a more upmarket look. "The company is definitely moving upmarket in Thailand," said Yod. "Our new ads are based on projecting a very professional urban image," Yod said, citing a radio ad that featured a young woman talking about her independence, fast-paced job and the fact that she can "fix her own car without a man's help." And her healthy fruit beverage of choice is Malee. In contrast, previous campaigns focused on Malee's use of quality ingredients. Yod maintained that the regional and Thai promotions are only indirectly related. "They're very different markets at very different stages," he said. "In Thailand our competition is very set - in some of these new markets, like Myanmar and Vietnam, there's no serious competition at all."

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