| Jerome Taylor |
BANGKOK (AFP) – Feverishly jotting down ideas in a funky glass-panelled conference room, Thailand’s ‘Mad Men’ are doing what they do best – creating tearjerker adverts that leave viewers scrambling for the tissue box.
So-called “sadvertising” has exploded around the world in recent years as brands jostle to engage customers and stand out from competitors.
An annual nostalgia-tinged Christmas commercial from retailer John Lewis has become a festive tradition in Britain, while Budweiser’s Lost Dog pulled heart strings and swept advertising awards in the US.
But few places are doing it with such devastating efficacy as the Thais, where the adverts are often as gruelling as they are memorable.
To outsiders Thailand advertises itself as the Land of Smiles, but its more emotionally complex than that.
The Thai language has more than one hundred phrases that use the word heart – “jai” – to discuss a whole gamut of emotions, while its soap operas are renowned for their notoriously tragic storylines.
This picture taken on November 16, 2015 in Bangkok shows a technician using a clapboard at the start of a sequence of an advert for a Thai bank promoting a scholarship fund. Feverishly jotting down ideas in a funky glass-panelled conference room, Thailand’s Mad Men are doing what they do best – creating tearjerker adverts that leave viewers scrambling for the tissue box. So-called ‘sadvertising’ has exploded around the world in recent years as brands jostle to find ways to engage customers and stand out from their competitors. AFP
The same is true of adverts. One recent spot, for a lingerie brand, pivots on a woman diagnosed with cancer on the same day she discovers she is pregnant, leaving her with the heart-wrenching choice of risking the baby’s life with chemotherapy, or her own.
The emotional punch packed by such adverts has flummoxed many international viewers, with videos of non-Thais trying not to weep through the adverts doing the rounds on YouTube.
“This is so horrible,” exclaims one viewer under the name ‘Deadlox’ as he watches the advert featuring the girl who attempts suicide, which was commissioned by a life insurance company.
“Why would they do that?” he says of the filmmakers.
Jinn Powprapai, founder of CJ Worx, a Bangkok agency that specialises in producing emotional viral adverts, offers one answer.
“Being a Buddhist is all about giving and caring. We tend to always have an emotional sympathy for people less fortunate than us,” he tells AFP.
One of the company’s recent commissions was from Khrung Thai Bank, a state-owned entity looking to promote its scholarship fund.
After months of back and forth they settled on two lengthy internet spots.
One tells the tragic tale of a female student who learns to conquer her fear of the neighbourhood dog ‘Olieng’ after his elderly owner dies.
Girl and dog then become inseparable, until she returns from school one day to find it fatally injured by a car.
Olieng eventually dies in her arms as memories of his happy life with the girl flash before his fading canine eyes.
The advert then skips to the present day where the girl has become a vet and is patching up another person’s beloved pooch.
“While others were lost in life’s bad moments,” a voiceover states, “she recognises the good times are an inspiration to reach our dreams.”
It’s a formula that clearly works for the domestic market.
Since its January 11 release the advert has racked up 12 million views and more than 350,000 shares on Facebook and 1.68 million views on YouTube.
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