Brief Explanation

The immediate buzz was widespread globally a few days after the launch of ‘I hate Thailand”, the online film using a counter-intuitive strategy to draw a quick attention and put Thailand back to the top of traveling destinations. The title did hit people. It engaged people to find out why Thailand was so hated. The film captured the intuition from the title, and was told based on the entertaining value, relevancy and a surprising twist. The opening scene mimics self-video recording to draw attention to gradually drag people into a beautiful story of Thai-ness. With the media investment of only 30,000 USD, the film gained over 1 million views within 3 days and could capture media’s attention around the world. Most importantly, it plays a vital role in the immediate success of Thailand in welcoming more international tourists, which gained 17.69% increase in the first quarter of 2015.

The Brief

To compete with other up-and-coming destinations, Thailand needed to find a new selling point apart from beautiful attractions that has been familiar to international tourists. Statistics show that Thailand’s ability to attract repeat visitors has reduced from 7.7 to 6.75, and the tendency to come back within 1 year decreases from 64% to 52%. To put Thailand back into the spotlight, an online film “I hate Thailand” was created, showing the beauty of Thai-ness, yet using a counter-intuitive strategy. It was intended to be unbranded and a provocative title was used to draw immediate attention.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

With the media investment of only 30,000 USD, the film gained over 1 million views within 3 days and could capture media’s attention around the world. Part of the success comes from more than 350,000 Facebook and 3,000 twitter organic shares worldwide. TAT gained more than 150 earned publications worldwide, such as the Telegraph, AP, Campaign Brief Asia, International Business Times, Huffington Post, AOL, to name just a few, and gained over 235 million impressions in USA alone. The film was launched in November 2015 and created an immediate affect to call in more international tourists. In January 2015, Thailand welcomed 2.65 million foreign tourists and generated 120 billion Baht in revenue, representing a year-on-year increase of 15.9% and 12.7%, respectively. The number still continues to rise. At the end of first quarter 2015, the number of international tourist arrivals gained 17.69% increase compared to the same period last year.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

This online film was launched only on YouTube and uploaded by one anonymous user in order to keep it unbranded. The only paid media is ‘suggested view’ when user’s keyword search matched our pre-set keywords to avoid being perceived as a commercial. Only 3 days after launch, the viewership went up to more than 1 million. The media support was as minimal as 30,000 USD in 1 month. The interest and attention it drew as a standalone unbranded film amplified its key messages following its reveal as a piece of TAT content. The revelation also created headlines internationally which accounted for uncountable media value and this drove the online interest even further.