Prapaporn (Gift) Rojsiriruch
Advertisements, specially on television have played an important role in people’s opinion on ways of living because Thai people spend plenty of their time at home. Therefore, their favorite activity is watching television, so they unavoidably see many commercials. Consequently, even though there is financial and economic crisis worldwide, Thai entrepreneurs have invested 92 billion Baht, approximately 3,220 Billion$, in advertising this year. This huge budget shows that advertising has an incredibly enormous effect on people that can increase company’s sale.
Advertising is a form of communication that attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase a particular product or service.[1] One of the service businesses that have put abundant resources into advertisement is insurance companies. In the past, Thai people do not feel anxious about life or health insurance because they traditionally felt that whatever happens, will happen. Since most of them are Buddhists, they believe in “Theory of Karma “, the law of cause and effect. Therefore, the insurance business wasn’t well-known until the past decade.
Insurance services were first introduced into Thai society in the era of King Rama IV by a foreign company that came to establish a branch office selling life insurance. Nowadays, because advertisements of most insurance companies in Thailand express true stories about life and love, which are the most important values in people’s lives, the consumers are concerned more about their living, health, and family. For example, Thai insurance company, the first insurance company in the country which was founded right after the Second World War, invests about 99.369 million Baht, 24.70 % more than last year, in order to increase the image of the company.
One of the most popular commercial of this insurance company is “Marry Me”. This theme of advertisement is a girl “Sang Dao” who should have only happiness, but finds out that she has final stage of leukemia. Doctors tell her that she can live only two more months so she breaks up with the man she loves as soon as she finds out. The man feels miserable about that bad news. After that, he goes back to her and asked her to marry him in order to take care of her in the final stage of live. This commercial not only won the second prize for the best advertisement in Thailand in 2007, but was also voted as the most touching advertisement of the year.[2] This commercial reflects people’s idea of the importance of happiness, love, and family while campaigning for donation of stem cells for leukemia’s patients as a social charity.
In conclusion, the media has great impact on people’s opinion about their way of living because nowadays life and health insurance have become one of the most vital businesses in the country. People are encouraged by commercials to take care of themselves and their love ones. Moreover, the top three commercials that won prizes for the best advertisement awards last year were from insurance companies, and they were all very touching. (517)
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