Health ministry to bust calendars with beverage logos

BANGKOK: -- The Public Health Ministry is considering action against alcohol beverage firms that distribute calendars clearly showing their brand names or logos - but with no constructive or educational information of value to society.

Dr Saman Futrakul, director of the Office of the Alcohol Beverage and Tobacco Consumption Control Committee, yesterday commented on news that a major alcohol beverage firm would distribute a sexy edition calendar to buyers during the New Year festival.

He said distributing a calendar with a brand name or logo but no worthy information contravened the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act on product ads. It could mean a one-year jail term and/or a Bt50,000 fine, as well as a daily fine of Bt50,000 until a correction was made.

Retailers displaying such calendars also violated the Act's article 30 (5) on promotions that encourage people to buy alcoholic drinks, punishable by a six-month jail term and/or Bt10,000 fine, he said.

Saman said he hoped four important laws - to be proposed for the National Committee on Alcohol Policy's approval on December 23 - would get a nod to prevent alcohol access among youth, especially a ban on alcohol sales within 500-metres of a school, and banning of the alcoholic smoothie drink.

The Ministry would propose for committee approval nine warning images to cover at least 50 per cent of the alcoholic drink labels. The ministry would host a contest so people could participate in designing the warning images, he said.

Phranakhon Rajabhat University's Mass Communications lecturer Nitta Roonkasem commented on Singha Corp.'s plan to launch, despite a risk of law violation, a calendar featuring models with body paint.

The firm expected criticism, but knew the Leo Brand label would become a talking point, she said, as people saw it on websites and the Internet.

Using women's sex appeal to sell alcohol drinks was an irresponsible marketing approach as it stimulated consumption among people of all ages, especially youths. The lecturer cited a study on students' attitudes towards drinking at Prince of Songkhla University that found half the respondents claimed drinking increased a chance to have sex and many believed advertising images that said it boosted sexieness .

Jaded Chouwilai, manager of the Friends of Women Foundation, said he didn't consider a calendar with nude women boosting beer sales as an art, but a sexual stimulation that could lead to violence.

He urged authorities to take up the issue seriously with major investors and the public in condemning the firm's move, saying it had tried to launch a sexy calendar last year despite the new law. The attempt this year was then a second-time offence.

A source reported that on the December 14 launch of this sexy calendar, and while state and public organisations were voicing their opposition to it, Thai cyber surfers were seeking it out. The Google search engine showed the company's calendar name was hit 402,000 times on the morning of December 14, while the pictures of models with body paint were forwarded widely via e-mails.


-- The Nation 2009-12-16

OMG, please....... not again useless crackdown.

Thailand is rapidly down spiraling to the new dark ages. What a ridiculous "crackdown".
As others said before: we need a crackdown on crackdowns !

I disagree; I think the constructive and educational benefits are irrefutable.

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I think they are 6 days early with their annual calendar crackdown comparing to last year.


http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=2421667

This post has been edited by basjke: 2009-12-16 06:47:26

Clown government... Does anyone still think it was only a particular politician's "Social Order" campaign that was at the root of this BS? It clearly runs (and ran) deeper.

Nuff said.

I am lost for words, I really don't know what to say to such idiocy

I’ll drink to that!!! Cheers

If they are gonna crackdown on firms that show logos only and no educational info (although I think a calendar can be pretty informative) they better stop all those BTS trains with the Chang Logos plastered all over them.

Do they really think that looking at a sexy girl in a calendar is gonna make me run out and buy booze? Perhaps after yes.

Pssst, anyone want a banned Singha Beer calendar?...

Welcome to amazing THAILANDIBAN....

Bring back the Shrimp Calendar or whatever it was called circa 1990.

Yea, someone should tel lil Patrick to republish that gem.

Just one more small step on the way to make this country as dour and miserable as many in the West have become, under the thumb of various interfering, do-gooder NGOs and busybodies.

Another victory for the health fascists and the Thailiban!

[quote name='bkkjames' date='2009-12-16 11:58:22' post='3206350']
If they are gonna crackdown on firms that show logos only and no educational info (although I think a calendar can be pretty informative) they better stop all those BTS trains with the Chang Logos plastered all over them.

Never thought of a calendar that way before James - good thinking.
There are plenty of interesting dates on it too - some of them even teach one a thing or two...hohoho!

Never thought of a calendar that way before James - good thinking.
There are plenty of interesting dates on it too - some of them even teach one a thing or two...hohoho!


It's bloody true, I look at the calendar daily (shit two more days til Friday), when the next protest should happen and so on.

They could put the X (times tables), a bit of poetry or a chinesse proverb on each page in xtra small letters thus making it educational...............

Sexy woman can never make me buy beer.....cos I don't drink it! But I am willing to try it if I get a free calendar.

No to be clear the clown is a bureaucrat [who's been around a long time and is an acknowledged 'sound bite' merchant] not the elected Minister, so that the balance of your post makes sense. The underlying blind panic about the future leads to, in this case, an annual ritual, rather like the Songkhran spaghetti strap top shock horror probe.

Regards

So the lunatic fringe in the government and various do-gooder advisory panels, want to eradicate all symbols and signs of alcohol, so that finally Somchai,his friends and neighbours will be unable to imagine a glass of beer or a shot of whisky etc.

He (or she) who is brave (or stupid) enough to wish for an outright ban on the sale of any alcohol will wish that he'd never let that genie out of the ...bottle.

I suppose Everton F.C. will have to cease wearing the Chang logo as it may prompt Thai football fans to rush out at half time for another half dozen bottles. (Liverpool too.)

RACY CALENDAR
Sales will go ahead : producers
By Hassaya Chatmontri
The Nation
Published on December 17, 2009

An heiress to the Singha Beer fortune yesterday handed out at Government House copies of controversial pin-up calendars promoting a new brand of beer.

Jittapas Pirompakdee, who works at the PM's Secretariat, brought two boxes of the racy calendars in her BMW's trunk and offered them to the media, police and officials, including deputy government spokesmen Phumin Leetheeraprasert and Supachai Jaisamut. The two spokesmen denied taking the calendars, saying they were only passing by.
Jittapas later asked a close friend to tell reporters she didn't intend to distribute the calendars, only giving them to Government House security guards who asked for them.
Dr Saman Futrakul, director of the Alcohol Beverage and Tobacco Consumption Control Committee, affirmed that the selling of such sexy calendars, rather than giving them away for free, remained a violation of the law.

He said the selling or distribution of calendars with models body-painted to emphasise the alcohol drink's brand name or logo was a form of advertising via print media.
He would soon meet with the committee's advisory board to discuss the calendar before filing a police complaint.
This was also a good opportunity for the committee to bring up the printing of brand names or logos of booze on clothes for possible legal punishment, because that was also within the framework of advertising.
Supermodel Methinee Kingpayom, who produced the calendar, has said she would start selling the 2010 calendar in one to two days.

But Saman said they would proceed with legal action against the sellers on grounds the calendar was an illegal item, so selling or contributing to it was illegal.
He had earlier warned that, under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, distributing a calendar with a brand name or logo but no worthy information could bring a one-year jail term and/or Bt50,000 fine, as well as a daily fine of Bt50,000 until a correction was made.

Meanwhile, well-known Thai woman activist Arunee Srito slammed Jittapas's action and said her group, together with some anti-alcohol activists, would submit an open letter to government heads today to express their objections and demand for the calendar distribution to stop.


-- The Nation 2009/12/17

As long as they have topless girls on the tire calendars I am happy.

So advertising even a small logo about an alcohol beverage is illegal in Thailand.
So I know of at least 3 billboards about the size of 10 by 10 meters about alcoholic beverages in Pattaya alone.I assume there must be hundreds of them all over the country.
Are they invisible or is this the same kind of law as the selling restrictions of alcoholic beverages between certain hours.

It is forbidden to advertise or sell alcohol but if you make the ad big enough or you buy big quantity's of alcohol it will be allowed.

Lookkade

And it was absolutely impossible to just write "in her car's trunk"? Someone would rather investigate journalistic corruption through product placement than what they're doing now.

Not long before the Taliban will flee Thailand "because it is no fun here anymore".