Carat Media Services CEO Vichai Suphasomboon is very optimistic that 2007 will be a golden year for the industry, with more than Bt100 billion in revenues.

Ogilvy and Mather vice chairman Punnee Chaiyakul predicts the industry will be stable. She estimates its growth rate will be the same as the inflation rate of 5 per cent. Hence, no actual growth will occur.

For the worst-case scenario, Witawat Jayapani, CEO of Creative Juice\G1 and president of the Advertising Association of Thailand, believes the industry will experience its worst downturn in six years, with a 10-per-cent negative-growth rate.

"Many marketers know very well the government wants to promote a sufficiency economy but are still unclear as to what exactly the phrase means to the government, due to its unclear economic policy," commented Witawat. "For example, how high will the interest rate policy be, which relates to the direction of financial loans and credit-card consumption? They question is whether they will receive any support from the government."

With such an unclear policy, consumers thinking of buying homes, for instance, will delay their plans, which will affect spending not only in the real-estate industry, but also in other related businesses and eventually the whole economic system. This presents difficulties for marketers to set effective business plans.

Witawat urged the government to make its policies clear early next year. He said that otherwise, the advertising industry would grow worse throughout the year.

On the other hand, Carat Media's Vichai said next year would be one in which businesses would rel^ease assets they have patiently held onto this year.

"Advertisers have delayed all launch plans for products and services and adopted a wait-and-see attitude in the face of intense political and economic uncertainty," said Vichai. "But today, we have an interim government that is working for political stability. General elections are also expected to be arranged next year. Considering that the situation has turned gradually back on track, it will be a time for the advertising industry to become lively once again."

Ogilvy and Mather's Punnee said advertisers, particularly major ones, will not stop creating awareness of their products and services.

"Spending in some mass-media channels might not be so good, which might cause the entire industry to have an unimpressive outlook, but actually they'll simply move budgets from one media channel to another," she pointed out.

Whatever the future, the best way to survive effectively is to be very clever in planning and creating brand-building plans and act like clients' partners instead of simply finishing an ad job. By doing that, deep information and a close watch on the movements of particular businesses and media channels are key.

Many big agencies currently have integrated departments, including media planning, brand-building campaigns, ad creation and research. Having integrated working departments seems to be a big advantage, but Punnee said that alone did not guarantee success.

Instead, the agencies must be strong in what they do.

"Advertisers don't have to use only one agency in setting plans from the very first step until their brands are publicised," said Punnee.

Also, agencies should have a long-term vision instead of just looking at what is happening currently and is working in the short-term. They must be clever in generating creative ideas as well, because competition within the industry will certainly turn increasingly intense.

 Nitida Asawanipont

 The Nation