Nikki Blog

Free magazines and newspapers are the hottest items in the coffee shop in 2008.  DailyXPress, part of the Nation group, launched this free midget tabloid size daily newspaper earlier this year, and had all the Bangkok journalists together in one room on that day. Despite the small size of the newspaper, the impact is huge, and can be felt by the other newspapers and magazines, paid and unpaid.   The “borrowed” and “repeated” articles in the DailyXPress are the same as the one we used to read in the Nation, but it is now easier to digest (in case you didn’t get it the first time you read else where).  But people don’t mind though, we Thai like the glaring orange banner and juicy news. 

The competition is fierce in the world of free news.  GURU and BK magazines were the prominent players in the free market in 2005-2006, until many other magazines such as Viva and TGI Friday follows suit.  As a reader, I felt quite overwhelm by the choices of what to read.  There doesn’t seems to be enough time to capture them, so reliability in the distribution plays a key role in what gets read. And as a sponsor to these magazines, I feel the market share has broken up into smaller pieces, and require me to carefully choose the magazines to invest in. This is also because the number of circulation quoted by them just doesn’t seems to add up to the total number of readers anymore. 

What’s the way forward for these free magazines? Will we visit the bubble burst like when there were too many magazines launched in 2004? 

Free magazines are a very lucrative business.  They earn a very profitable income from advertisements, (trust me I talked to the people running them.) Weekly magazines earns weekly income, daily magazines earns 7 times that weekly income!  But of course, advertisements cannot increase forever to support the run of so many new magazines. The existing magazines will need to be qualitative and consistent in its content and distribution channel.  As far as I can see, none has been able to achieve this standard, but it’s never too late. 

It is often a funny sight when I see a man carrying small cuddly/trendy handbag that obviously belonged to his other half.  I also recently came across a similar phenonmenon in the Singapore newspaper , where a study claimed that 80 percent of the women expected their boyfriend to foot the bill. What is a relief for me is that the study also revealed that 92 percent of the poll would pay.  Are Thai women so spoiled that we expected men to pay for the meal, carry our handbags and take us home safely these days?  

Despite the smart suit, rolling up sleeves, going to top universities, and sweating our way up the corporate ladder, women do still like to be taken care of when it comes to dating. Many want to date a prince charming and being looked after (I don’t mean paying for mortgage here), instead of get treated equally. It could be viewed as a double standard, but I think we are genetically ingrained to behave this way. 

Women are, as you know, physically weaker than men, so nature engineered itself such that men will want to support women, or in this modern case, carry her handbag. In the past, women are also attracted to a mating partners that are physically strong to pass on their genes. So as the world evolved, the men with “good genes” are often tend to be smarter, and therefore likely to be more successful.  Women then sensed the “good genes” not just from the physical attribute, but also from his ability to pick up the bill and provide the comfort to raise the family and passed on their genes. 

So are women lazy? are we spoiled? Have we moved the feminism back 50 years as it said in the article?  We are as nature intended us to be, and this is a personal choice and nothing to do with feminism. 

Or looked at yourself in the mirror and thought “My hair looks so dull/unnatural, and I had this hair style/colour for years, but don’t know how to change it.”

Or I owned as much cosmetics products as a make up artist does, but I can’t seem to be able to apply it to the same affect.

Every weekend, I have scheduled in atleast one makeover session with male and female clients who are about to go on the date, to go over their attires, hairs, makeup, perfumes etc.  I think I have done it enough time to be able to start blogging about it with some useful insights and really workable tips. 

The first thing I considered when the clients come in, is to see if their clothes are right for them.  Does the cloth suits your lifestyle, social situations and personality? And most important of all, does the cloth says to your dating partner that “I am the one that you want to be seen next to”?

Hair is another essential items that often gets neglected. Most hairdressers cut your hair the way you told them to, but does it really suits your personality, lifestyle or career? I mean for a start, the hairdressers just wouldn’t know, unless you have been going to the same one for years.  Styling your hair is also very important, don’t over do whatever you think is good because it is usually isn’t. 

And the last point is just absolutely unbelievable, it always amazed me how many Thai women don’t know how to put on a good make up.  Applying the makeup in a right way can make you not only look younger, but it will also save you from having to buy in new unnecessary products that come out every seasons unknowlegably.

Trust me, changing your image can also boost your confident, and you will be glad that you took on the advice. 

People who come to see me are usually people who are ready to make a postive change to their life. They are proactive, wanting to choose, rather than being chosen.  So depending on how much changes you are prepared for, the makeover can be 10 mins -3 months, but the benefit is for a lifetime. (Note: Unlike an image consultant in the department stores that gets commissions if you buy the products (meaning conflict of interest), I don’t get paid for this, so you can be assured what I suggest will be worth it.)

Did I mention that I just recieved a call after this blog went up from my client, whom I did a makeover for last Thursday, saying that she got approached by a guy who offered to pay for her dinner with friends after she tried following my makeup tip? She was so pleased about it as it has never happened before! Great job girl!

A guideline of our free makeover process will be put up at the end of this week.

With 75.7 billion baht or $2.4 billion worth of advertisement revenue floating around in Thailand, I think it is worth discussing some experience I have had with such industry promoting my dating service.  I’ll try to make it as generalised as possible so you can use it too if you want to start marketing your own product.

If you want to go big and broke, watch out when you hire a PR company.  They may be good with getting newspaper to write articles on your business, organise an event, leaflet handouts etc. but they also great at sucking your income faster than you could earn it.  Line out all the details of what they will be offering to every single details otherwise your investment can dry up into a heated Bangkok air.  Write to me if you want to know a good and most effective PR company in Bangkok. 

 A lot of time you can actually do a self PR without going through an agency, but it’s time consuming especially if you don’t know who to contact.  Some jounalists do take compensation (off the book) for writing a story on your product , but it will take a lot of time and effort. It is somewhat easier if you hold a press conference of  the new product launch or send them photograph of your events, they will likely to publish it.  For the first example, make sure that you inform the newspapers and magazine in advance prior to press conference.  If some newspaper can’t make it, some jounalist will actually try to interview you afterwards.

Direct adverstisement in the magazines or newspaper are also pretty pricey.  I have recently got a quote from Prestige, an upscale magazine, with a 275,000 baht for a page inside the front cover, and why should anyone choose to advertise with this magazine? The exact quote is:

• Represents only outrageously luxury brands

• High earning professional target market

• Beautifully designed advertisings

• Engaging editorial

I almost choked when I read the first reason, and started to wonder what comes first, an outrageously expensive luxury brand or a crazy price quote from a Thai magazine. 

The last tip if you want to run a business in Thailand, it’s not what you can do, but it’s who you know. It’s sad but true. 

I asked my boyfriend this morning, “at what gasoline price are you going to give up driving?”

His answer was “maybe when it hits 50 baht per litre, then I’ll start taking a taxi”. 

Whether it’s $100/ bbl now for 30 baht/litre of gasoline, or a $200/bbl for 50 baht/litre (taking account of the anticipated dollar depreciation), the oil price will keep going up as long as you keep paying. 

With the surging inflation via food prices and other products, the consumers have yet to step back (or if they have, not in a significant way).  Many countires in Asia, still have oil price subsidies, particularly large consumers such as China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.  Although China can/wants  to move away from these subsidies, it prefers to buy it off as the Olympics is approaching. 

In the absence of political events, I would expect crude oil prices to slip in the near term due to weaker demand in Europe, but a continued annual increases in oil price until 2010, or whenever my boyfriend decided to stop driving.