In March last year, Suthisak Sucharittanonta was honoured as ADFEST’s 2017 Lotus Legend – an honour he modestly declined, saying: ““I'm not a legend. I don't want to be a legend because, in my mind, being 'a legend' is a sign of old age!”
 

But Sucharittanonta – who is  Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of BBDO Bangkok – is indeed a living legend of advertising, not just in Thailand but globally.
 

In 2016, he participated in a fabulous interview with ADFESTbuzz reporter Emir Shafri, Executive Creative Director at Y&R Malaysia. He shared tonnes of interesting insights about advertising in Thailand, so we thought we’d revisit it again today. Here’s an excerpt:
 

My first question is about Thai commercials. How did work like ‘Black Cat’ bring Thai ads to the world stage?
 
I think we have a different way of life in Thailand, it’s pretty laid back, and we have a different mentality. What makes Thai advertising different is that Thai people love humour, they enjoy watching something entertaining. Whereas in Western countries it can be more intellectual, people love watching something that makes you think.
 
But remember that advertising in Thailand learns from the West. We found out that Thai people like ‘Zab!’ ads. ‘Zab’ means flavourful, like if you’re watching Muay Thai, it’s a ‘zab’ sport, because they use so many parts of the body. Thai food is ‘zab’ because it’s so flavourful – there are so many flavours in one bowl. That’s how Thai people like it, and it’s the same with advertising.
 

How do you think Thai advertising has progressed?
 
For me, there are now very few Thai humour commercials as there were in the 90s because we used to have two legendary directors. Now we’re waiting for the new generation to come through and have the skill and talent to direct. Actually, if I talk about ‘Zab’ it’s not just about humour – it’s flavourful, it means Thai people love things with maximum drama, things that make everybody cry. I think that Thai advertising has slightly changed from humour to drama, to become more emotional. These days if you come to Thailand, you’ll see more work like this.
 

Has the state of advertising somewhat declined in this region?
 
There has been political uncertainty in Thailand. It means clients have to carefully spend their marketing budgets, and agencies have to help our clients find other ways to connect, not just through commercials.
 

MOTO Repellent won lots of awards at ADFEST. What I personally love is it’s not just advertising but creates good for the community. How important do you think it is for agencies to help other people?
 
That’s an area we focus on these days. We used to produce a lot of commercials, but right now there are so many problems happening everywhere. We can use creativity to solve problems in tangible ways, and help communities have a better life.
 
People in slum communities cannot afford to have good health, they have a lot of mosquitoes and last year dengue fever attacked Thailand, and the population of mosquitoes went up. So what do we have to do to repel mosquitoes? We went to slums and saw so many motorbikes used in small alleys – that’s how we came up with the idea. Can we turn waste, exhaust, into something good?
 


* Watch Suthisak’s interview here on ADFEST’s official YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62vyi0GWXPA