Tag: Thailand

Thailand – Robinhood, a Bangkok-based food delivery and all-in-one travel service platform under SCBX Group, Purple Ventures Co., Ltd., has announced a multi-year strategic alliance with Google Cloud and MFEC Public Company Limited (MFEC) to advance its mission of building a homegrown super app that delivers inclusive growth opportunities to small business owners, delivery riders, and diverse users in metro and non-metro areas. Robinhood had already started planning late last year.

A super app is basically a unified app that has everything a person needs. This includes ride-hailing services, food delivery, payment wallets, flight and accommodation bookings, groceries, and many more. Currently, there are over a dozen super apps in Southeast Asia, each with its unique offering apart from integrating the other services that are offered in the app. In Thailand, super apps are available for consumers as well. However, there still isn’t a homegrown super app. The current super apps available in the country are from enterprises that have a strong business presence in the country.

April Srivikorn, country manager, Thailand at Google Cloud, pointed out that pandemic-driven shifts in consumer behaviour are expected to have a lasting impact, with food and transport, e-commerce, online travel, and digital financial services the key growth verticals in a resurgent internet economy that’s set to be worth US$57 billion by 2025.

Adopting a zero-commissions stance to give small businesses and riders a larger share of earnings, Robinhood was launched to alleviate the financial hardships faced by local food and beverage operators during the height of the pandemic and support the local tourism sector’s economic recovery. The three organizations will join forces to strengthen Robinhood’s culture of innovation, modernize its IT infrastructure, elevate user experiences using data-driven intelligence, and co-create new digital services.

According to Thana Thienachariya, chairman of the board at Purple Ventures, Robinhood’s differentiated business model enables them to generate revenue from other independent services, such as providing loans to individuals in their ecosystem, instead of charging smaller restaurants and hoteliers platform fees that erode their earning.

Thienachariya added, “With a fleet of 30,000 riders supporting 225,000 eateries, and 16,000 hotels already listed on our platform, Robinhood has become the food and travel application of choice for 2.8 million users. Together with Google Cloud and MFEC, we hope to build on the very warm response to our platform in the past 20 months and supercharge our expansion into the tour, car rental, flight bookings, and grocery and express parcel delivery services. This super app vision is an extension of our steadfast commitment toward assisting smaller players and revitalizing the grassroots economy.”

On the partnership with Google, Srihanath Lamsam, CEO of Purple Ventures, shared, that this was due to Google’s superior data cloud infrastructure which runs with net-zero operational emissions, and its rich experience in mapping the world and building open platforms and ecosystems. These capabilities, along with MFEC’s technical consulting and implementation expertise, will amplify Robinhood’s ability to create value for society, while contributing to our sustainability commitments.

The strategic alliance will encompass five core pillars including: 

  • Cultivating skilled talent and a culture of innovation – the three companies will establish a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) consisting of cloud architecture, data management, and application modernization specialists.
  • Enhancing the quality of digital services – the CCoE will tap microservices and extended Google Play Store support to ensure Robinhood’s customer and rider applications remain robust, reliable, and lightweight – even as new services are added and accessed by a high volume of users.
  • Serving hyper-personalized user engagement – the CCoE will build and manage an intelligent data engine using Google Cloud’s leading analytics, AI, and ML technologies. The data engine will also engage Robinhood users with hyper-personalized product recommendations on behalf of small businesses, to boost these merchants’ revenue streams.
  • Increasing income opportunities for riders – Robinhood will explore using Google Maps Platform’s software development kits to fast-track the creation and integration of on-demand mobility features. Potential use cases include providing riders with in-app, turn-by-turn navigation after identifying the shortest or fastest routes, so they can ride safer, fulfil orders quicker, and earn more.
  • Making financial assistance easily accessible – Robinhood will explore co-innovation initiatives with Google Cloud to embed virtual banking and microlending services into its application. This would allow small business owners to seamlessly apply for financial assistance to purchase new equipment and hire staff, or for prospective delivery riders to rent electric motorcycles.

Meanwhile, Siriwat Vongjarukorn, CEO and President, MFEC, commented, “With our newly formed CCoE imparting critical cloud skills, adopting an open cloud architecture, implementing data governance best practices, and automating application deployment, Robinhood can achieve performance at scale, optimize IT costs, uphold the highest data security and privacy standards, and empower its developers to release continuous software updates – without downtime – to enrich its entire digital ecosystem.” 

Thailand – CP, Thailand-based food company, has launched a new metaverse campaign in March for its product Sausage. CP Sausage used to have a fandom strategy every year in order to reach a new generation of consumers, this time, metaverse is making an entry. 

According to CP, they didn’t open the free verse in the hope of gaining traffic and selling their products, but instead, they used the power of fandom to acquire fans in the verse by using their product as a ticket to attend a Metaverse event. They predicted that more than 10,000 people would attend their Metaverse event on the day. 

The company said Asian fans are passionately devoted to their idols, as seen by the group’s long history of success. Because of the exclusivity of their product or event, especially if it is a limited edition. With this campaign, CP is looking for fans not just from Thailand, but also from China, Korea, Japan, and other ASEAN countries.

This year’s plan was the same as last year’s. One of Thailand’s best-known male idols, with more than a million Facebook fans, Mew Suppasit, has been tapped as a presenter. Gather, the 2D Metaverse platform was used to create his Metaverse world. Because Gather is the most practical platform, with over 10 million users worldwide.

The company said, “Apart from choosing a presenter with a strong fan base, building relationship with them is also delicate.”

“It’s not about marketing or advertising, it’s about telling the details that fans want to know, helping to solve the problem, answering their questions clearly and listen to the needs of the fans. Because they are people who have most influenced in campaign success,” CP added. 

Bangkok, Thailand – Today, the airasia Super App has officially launched its e-hailing service, airasia ride, in Bangkok, Thailand. The debut comes shortly after airasia ride announced that it will expand its operations in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines in the coming quarters. Thailand becomes the second country for airasia ride’s ASEAN expansion, and will offer taxi rides as part of its first phase of entry into the market.

The latest ride in town was officially launched by Amanda Woo, CEO of airasia Super App, Ben-Jie Lim, Head of Delivery airasia and Nirada Tuckawarut, Head of airasia ride Thailand today with a flag-off of airasia ride’s taxi convoy. 

There are currently 3,000 drivers registered with airasia ride in Bangkok, with plans to recruit more as the service expands across the city. 

In line with the aim to capture the international tourist riders market, the next provinces which airasia ride aims to expand to are holiday destinations such as Phuket and Chiang Mai. 

Amanda Woo, CEO of airasia Super App commented, “We are very excited for the launch of airasia ride here in Bangkok today, as it completes the whole airasia Super App ecosystem. Now, an airasia Super App user arriving in Bangkok will have the full end-to-end experience, where they are able to book their flights, hotels and ride to their final destination all within the convenience of one single platform. Since our successful super app launch here in February, we have seen an increase of 53% in new users, mainly driven by our OTA platform, which is our core business and we expect continued healthy growth of new users with the launch of airasia ride today. 

“Congratulations to the whole airasia ride team in Thailand for working hard to get this service up and running by this quarter, and we look forward to serving more provinces across the country soon,” added Amanda. 

Nirada Tuckawarut, head of airasia ride Thailand, shared, “As we are starting off with taxi service for airasia ride, we are targeting to capture 70% of international tourists arrival into Bangkok, especially with the reopening of borders and resumption of travel post-pandemic.”

“The differentiation that airasia ride will offer is the option for passengers to have options to book our English-speaking drivers community and a fleet of new taxis which will ensure a pleasant travel experience for tourists in Bangkok while using airasia ride. And of course, we also prioritise the drivers’ income opportunity and are happy to share that airasia ride taxi drivers take 100% of the fares they earn, as we do not impose the booking fee on drivers. Furthermore, passengers can be confident when booking airasia ride as our fares are transparent, so come and experience an airasia ride and see you on one of our rides soon,” Tuckawarut added. 

In an interview with MARKETECH APAC, Chiew Shan Lim, Regional CEO of airasia ride, shared how airasia ride looks to disrupt e-hailing as it marks regional expansion, Lim said that the company isn’t looking to compete with other competitors like Grab and Gojek in Indonesia, but rather they aim to disrupt the market by filling in the gaps that current players are missing.

“Our mission why we started is we see opportunity in the market and we see that the drivers’ welfare [is] not really really taken care of and customers are being thrown with crazy prizes during traffic jams,” Lim said.

Bangkok, Thailand – What happens when a brand struggles to come up with the theme for their latest advertising campaign? Some would say lean to one generation first and leave the rest. But this was not what Thai fried chicken brand Five Star Chicken did, and instead crowdsourced every idea they could get from both the young and old generation, and made it into a full seven-minute ad.

Conceptualised alongside creative agency BBDO Bangkok, the quirky and tongue-in-cheek ad features a presenter called ‘Weir’ who tries to crowdsource ideas for the ad. And so, with every minute passing, a totally unrelated scene or theme comes into play, whether bad guys chowing down on chicken sticks, a Harry Potter sorcerer turning into a magical princess, or how a commando goes head to head with a Chinese martial artist.

As quirky as the ad is, the brand communicates its message that no matter the ideology–whether politics, music, fashion or even how to raise your child–what you all share is the love for chicken.

“The first replies were some quirky, but cool ones on Instagram, but then we saw people discussing the topic further on Facebook and Twitter. In the end, our filmmaker suggested we go out and ask people on the street what they want, and bang, we had an ad for all generations,” the agency explained.

Meanwhile, Thasorn Boonyanate, chief creative officer at BBDO Bangkok, commented, “It’s quirky, it’s weird, it’s funny, and yet it’s a super entertaining film that brings together every idea from every generation into one exciting story.”

As of this writing, the ad has generated over 600,000 views on Five Star Chicken Thailand’s official YouTube channel.

Bangkok, Thailand – Publicis Groupe Thailand is moving its leadership structure to a co-CEO one, with current CEO Songkran Sethesompobe joined by Sorada Sonprasit, currently CEO of Brilliant & Million, and Paruj Daorai, currently Managing Director of Digitas Thailand.

The move to a co-CEO structure in the market is in line with the scale of the Groupe’s business in Thailand, aligned with the ambition in the coming years to make Thailand a real focus for Groupe transformation and acceleration, as well as representative of the potential in Southeast Asia of Thailand as a market.

Both Sorada and Paruj will report to Amrita Randhawa, CEO of Publicis Groupe, Singapore & Southeast Asia. The appointment is effective 1 June with the outgoing CEO overlapping for a smooth transition till the end of June. 

Sonprasit started Brilliant & Million after an illustrious career working with companies like American Express and Citibank. Always ahead of her time, she saw a huge opportunity for digital in 2007 and started Brilliant & Million. And in 2018 once again saw the immense potential of taking the agency to the next level by integrating Brilliant & Million into Publicis Groupe.

Meanwhile, Dorai began his career in advertising as a copywriter. From a small agency in Bangkok to a degree in graphic design in the US and stints in ad and design firms across the USA, Paruj came home to Bangkok to start the second phase of his career working at D’Arcy (DMB&B), Lowe Bangkok and Ogilvy & Mather Thailand. A move to the Leo Burnett Group Thailand shaped up the third phase of Paruj’s career. Moving from CD to ECD to launching Digitas Thailand.

Lastly, Songkran joined Publicis Groupe as CEO of Leo Burnett Thailand in April 2011. Together with his team, he has led Leo Burnett Thailand to become one of the most recognized and awarded agencies in Thailand. In May 2016, Songkran was appointed Country Head of Publicis Groupe Thailand.

Speaking on the new endeavour, Randhawa said, “I am delighted to see Sorada and Paruj step up into this role. Both are leaders who have been ahead of their time in developing digitally-led services for clients and work really well in partnership with each other, making them a very strong choice as we continue to transform the Groupe and its services in Thailand. I would also like to thank Khun Jod for his many years of service to the Groupe and for building strong relationships with our people and our clients. He is a trusted voice who will be missed.”

Bangkok, Thailand – Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has launched its first data centre in Thailand to bolster local businesses’ digital innovation capabilities. The move is also in line with the Thailand government’s 20 year National Strategic Plan to provide security, prosperity and sustainability to the nation.

With Thailand Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) coming into force in June, the launch of Alibaba Cloud’s first data centre in Thailand further reiterates the company’s commitment to comply with Thai regulations when operating locally, and to bring secure and innovative technology to the country. The data centre has secured ISO27001 and ISO20000 certificates and is compliant with Thailand PDPA regulations, as well as the financial regulatory guideline issued by The Bank of Thailand (BOT).

Tyler Qiu, country manager for Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Thailand, said, “Data security and protection remains our top priority as we continue to expand. With the establishment of our new data centre, we are committed to being compliant with Thailand’s rules and regulations.

“In addition, we want to bring our best technology offerings, as well as our vertical know-how to Thailand. With Alibaba Cloud’s successful track record supporting global businesses, we hope to create an inclusive digital ecosystem to power Thailand’s vision as ASEAN’s digital hub,” Qiu said.

The security offerings that have been brought to Thailand include anti-DDoS service, WAF, security centre, action trail, and more. These security services can boost platform security protection, proactive defence, threat detection, and investigation and response, such as protecting software, app or websites against ransomware, mining and backdoor, and trojan programs to reduce operational issues. Architecturally, Alibaba Cloud’s security centre is also able to provide compliance assessments for businesses, in order to protect online and offline servers to meet regulatory compliance requirements.

Other key products and solutions that the company have officially launched in Thailand together with the data centre include elastic computing, database, network, storage, developer services, content delivery and enterprise applications.

Alibaba Cloud has also been enhancing its local technology implementation and migration capabilities through the support of its partners. Since the launch of its Thailand Partner Alliance 100 program last October, more than 40 partners such as National Telecom, Thailand Fintech Association, HiCloud, TMES, to name a few, have embarked on the growth journey with Alibaba Cloud. Besides direct sales, Alibaba Cloud will also work with partners to innovate new solutions to support Thai businesses.

Diego Ma, CEO of HiCloud, shared, “Together with Alibaba Cloud, we are bringing world-leading solutions to Thai customers to increase cloud adoption for their businesses.”

Thailand – Bitkub Blockchain Technology Co., Ltd, a blockchain company has partnered with Metaverse Thailand, the visual world development platform, to connect Metaverse Thailand with Bitkub Chain and enhance the land area’s expansion in the future.

According to Metaverse Thailand, they have already moved the infrastructure on Bitkub Chain and allowed the users to trade the land using KUB Coin. Thus, this will demonstrate the owners’ rights of the land along with business expansion on the visual world. Moreover, the users can also swap META Coin with KUB Coin.

Passkorn Pannok, CEO of Bitkub Blockchain Technology, shared, “With the new plan announcement, we will expand the current users on Metaverse Thailand on Bitkub Chain. Also, the land office on Metaverse Thailand will be opened for sale and allowed the users to trade on Bitkub Metaverse using KUB, MVP and KUSD coin.

In addition, Metaverse Thailand also invest in Bitkub Metaverse land to build “land office” and allow the users to trade the land using KUB, MVP and KUSDT along with announcing the new features such as staking and mortgaging. Moreover, the new set of land will be sold under Asoke and Prompong area for 33 KUSDT, 3 KUB or 333 MVP per 1 HEX, which will be opened for sale on 30 May 12.00 and 20.00

Meanwhile, Pongsakorn Udombua, from Metaverse Thailand, commented, “Under this new roadmap, the new zone (Promprong area) will be added up with 80,000 HEXAGON, which we have followed our community’s suggestion for this new updates. We have already reduced the unnecessary area including the street, canal and garden in order to enhance the platform’s potential for everyone.”

Bangkok, Thailand – The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has joined hands with Thai AirAsia in launching the ‘Amazing New Chapter: Rediscover Thailand Get ready to go to Thailand’ campaign, a new campaign aimed at millennials and young couples from Singapore.

The project was announced in Singapore by Tanes Petsuwan, deputy governor for international marketing for TAT Asia and South Pacific, and Santisuk Klongchaiya, CEO of Thai AirAsia. They were also joined by TAT officials and Thai AirAsia executives. The event was presided over by H.E Chutintorn Gongsakdi, ambassador of Thailand to Singapore.

On the partnership, Petsuwan said, “With various factors supporting the return of tourism to Thailand, among them the relaxing of entry requirements to the kingdom, easing of travel restrictions in source markets worldwide and resumption of commercial flights, this is a great opportunity to stimulate travellers’ decision-making. This latest marketing campaign is expected to have a positive effect on the Thai tourism industry in the second half of this year.”

Singapore is a key visitor source market for Thailand, and the new campaign is among the various joint promotion marketing activities the TAT Singapore Office is working on. The campaign utilises Thai AirAsia’s Singapore-Don Mueang and Singapore-Phuket routes and is for travel from May to July 2022.

TAT Singapore Office also organised a media fam trip to Thailand recently, from May 12 to May 15, 2022, to promote the Singapore-Don Mueang route, new tourist attractions and activities, as well as tourism-related facilities and offers.

Meanwhile, Klongchaiya, commented, “Thai AirAsia has always received great support from the TAT, and we thank them very much for their cooperation. Thai AirAsia is ready to help stimulate tourism and travel to Thailand, and in addition to the existing Don Mueang and Phuket routes, we are considering adding a Singapore-Chiang Mai route.”

Bangkok, Thailand – Starr Insurance Companies has announced its expansion of services in Thailand by announcing an agreement with FPG Insurance Holdings Limited (HK) (FPG) and local Thai shareholders to purchase FPG Insurance Public Company Limited (FPG Thailand), a Thai non-life insurance company, together with local Thai parties.

Starr expects to strengthen local product offerings with tailored commercial insurance and accident and health (A&H) products and plans to further maximise its growth by recruiting and developing local Thai insurance talent. Previously, Starr supported the Thai insurance market primarily through its provision of reinsurance products, including technical risks, casualty, marine, and A&H products.

David Zuellig, FPG regional chairman, said, “This transaction reflects the standing of our franchises and is the product of the hard work, persistence, and determination of the FPG Thailand team despite challenging market conditions. The team is excited and ready to work with Starr in bringing the company to the next level.”

Meanwhile, Maurice R. Greenberg, chairman and CEO at Starr, commented, “Thailand is an important, fast-growing insurance market — one of the cornerstones of the Southeast Asia economy. Asia is both commercially and culturally important to Starr, as we trace our roots to an American-owned company founded in Shanghai more than 100 years ago. We look forward to serving the needs of local Thai companies and consumers through this new insurance capability.”

Thailand — All kinds of athletes need hydration to fuel concentration in competitive settings. That’s why Talon, a Southeast Asian esports organization, has announced GBeat, an energy drink for gamers in Thailand, as the official energy drink partner of its Arena of Valor (ROV) team.

The partnership will see Talon, the organization and its athletes, promote the new zero sugar brand designed specifically for gamers with co-created content across the team’s social media in Thailand.

Sean Zhang, CEO of Talon Esports, said, “Our players are amongst the best in the world at what they do. Whether it is match day or training during the week, the players require intense concentration and focus for hours on end.”

Zhang continued by saying, “We are delighted to have such an exciting new brand in GBeat fuel the team to ensure they’re at peak performance no matter the occasion. Equally important is being able to share with our fans the things we love. It’s a great tasting product that will enhance the gaming experience of any gamer – whether it’s gaming themselves or cheering on their favourite team or streamer.”

Talon is the current representative of Thailand’s ROV team, sending 5 players to Vietnam at the upcoming SEA Games this May.