The airline and the tourism body will raise marketing activity even as Thailand’s biggest brands undergo huge losses due to political instability and global financial crisis.
In a statement Pandit Chanapai, Thai Airways’ executive vice-president, commercial, said he “has instructed every Thai Airways overseas office all over the world on [an] accelerated sales and marketing push”.
In a statement Pandit Chanapai, Thai Airways’ executive vice-president, commercial, said he “has instructed every Thai Airways overseas office all over the world on [an] accelerated sales and marketing push”.
The organisations are in the early stages of developing a joint campaign with their creative agencies McCann Erickson and Lowe Worldwide, which will be released before the end of this year. Ad agency McCann Erickson, which handles the creative and media for the Tourism Authority, confirmed that the brand had raised the budgets for next year. According to Aung Thura, engagement planning director of McCann Worldgroup Thailand, the media budgets for 2009 are slated to rise by 20 to 30 percent. Its current budget is estimated at US$10 milion.
“We will start launching our campaigns right from the New Year, which is much earlier than usual. Also there will be an increase in spend on digital. However, we will stick to traditional message-placing in print and TV.”
As part of a PR drive, Tourism Thailand and Thai Airways are co-hosting a ‘Thailand invitation’ familiarisation trip for 800 media representatives and travel operators worldwide, all of whom are being flown to Thailand and back courtesy of Thai Airways. The countries targeted by Tourism Thailand will be the ones that are less than six hours from Bangkok.
The Tourism Authority is also launching the ‘Amazing Thailand’ photo contest to target existing and potential tourists. A microsite on the Tourism Thailand website has been soft-launched.
Lowe Thailand’s CEO Tony Prehn, however, said that he was not aware of any increase in ad budgets by Thai Airways for 2009. “Thai Airways intends to maintain a strong marketing presence in order to help strengthen traffic to Thailand and to continue to build its brand image as a leading global airline. Driving revenue is a key priority for Thai Airways and all airlines at the moment,” he said.
Thai Airways recently announced it would cut flights in response to a drop in demand. The airline said it filled just 70 per cent of its seats in the third quarter and had a loss of seven billion baht (US$204 million) in the first half of the year.
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