Dash has been appointed sole distributor of Senator pens to Burma, Cambodia Laos, Thailand and Vietnam for the next three years.

Thomas Pierner, Senator's sales director for the Asia-Pacific, yesterday said Dash had the right marketing ideas and good technical and engineering background to help Senator expand into the region.

The company has built a Bt5-million manufacturing plant in Thailand, with a production capacity of 250,000 ball-point pens per month. Managing director Jirabool Vittayasing said his company planned to enter the Thai ball-point pen market "through the back door", by selling pens to corporate clients as promotional materials. In this way, Dash will gain a foothold in the bigger consumer pen market without having to spend a huge amount on marketing.

Jirabool said there has been no proper study made of the total value of the promotional-goods market but that his personal estimate was Bt10 billion, with the segment for pens used for promotional purposes worth Bt200 million to Bt300 million.

Priced from Bt25 to Bt60, Senator pens will compete with well-known brands like Parker by Sanford Stationery and Sheaffer by Bic, the latter of which is the current global market leader. The pen market has many players and recently witnessed an influx of cheap pens from China that target the low end. Jirabool said Dash's marketing budget for next year was Bt5 million.

It hopes to create brand awareness for Senator at Royal Flora Ratchaphruek 2006, which opens next Wednesday and will run to the end of next January.

Dash is licensed by Royal Flora Ratchaphruek to produce accessories, stationery and watches as souvenirs of the fair.

"This event is a huge opportunity to create awareness of the Senator brand, because we know it will attract 2 million visitors," said Jirabool, adding that Dash expected to achieve Bt30 million in sales.

In the longer term, the company expects to achieve Bt20 million in sales of Senator ball-point pens by the end of this year and a further Bt50 million next year. Eighty per cent of the turnover will be from Thailand and the rest from Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. A strong e-catalogue system linking to any country and solid customer bases in those countries will boost Dash's ambition to expand abroad. Recently, it appointed sales representatives in the other four countries.

Senator, established in 1920, is part of the Merz Pharma conglomerate. It is the leading ball-point manufacturer in Europe and third largest in the world after Bic and Sanford. It plans to be the second largest within three years.

Jirabool hopes Dash will enter a partnership with Senator after its marketing efforts have proven successful, to invest in future projects.

Dash was established 15 years ago as a promotional-goods specialist, making watches, pens, key-rings and other gifts and souvenirs. This year, its projected turnover is Bt200 million.

It hopes the addition of Senator ball-point pens will help increase its sales by 20 per cent.

Nitida Asawanipont

Tsui Ki Nan

The Nation