Online advertising to brighten Thai economy

Despite Thailand's staggering economy, businesses still flourish and invest bigger budgets for digital advertising. The aim is to target Thai consumers through smartphone apps, social working forums, and video-sharing websites, as reported by Reuters.

This year's forecast of spending on digital advertising is to jump by two-thirds to a record of 9.9 billion baht ($277.47 million) in Southeast Asia's second-largest economy, according to the Digital Advertising Association (Thailand) (DAAT). While the economy lingers at 44% in 2014 and 53% in 2013, the near-term outlook for online advertising looks vigilant as advertisers target more and more Thai consumers in the virtual world.

DAAT recently upgraded its growth forecast for digital ad spending to 62% from its previous estimate of 33%. The gathered data came from 17 agencies that represent 80% of spending in the market. Social media network such as Facebook and video ads on Google's YouTube contribute for the largest share of online advertising spending.

Thakol Banjongruck, analyst at KK Trade Securities, wrote a note to the investors saying that the overall advertising spending had dropped 2% in the first seven months and was dragged down by a reduction in ad spending in newspapers and magazines.

A seminar was arranged by the Advertising Association of Thailand (AAT) to discuss the direction and trends in developing creative advertising works despite a rapidly changing media landscape. According to a forum on September 2, "A good story-telling and creative advertising campaign should be sustained together with a multi-screen strategy in the competition to capture audience attention in a fast-moving market where consumers also establish their own content."

On October 7, an event called "12th Adman Awards and Symposium 2015" will be held under the "Prove Them Wrong" theme.

"The Thai advertising industry had changed because of two key factors: the arrival of the mobile Internet allowed people to learn how to access new information; and with the fragmentation, consumer behavior shifted into new patterns across platforms," said Trong Tantivejakul, chief creative officer of Y&R Thailand.

AAT president On-usa Lamliengpol said that, "This year was expected to see a 60-per-cent surge to about Bt9.8 billion in advertising via digital media, while overall ad spending that could witness 4-per-cent growth as referred to a forecast by the Digital Agency Advertising of Thailand."