RS Concepts bags deal with Bangkok bus company

The Philippines’ leading non-traditional media provider RS Concepts has clinched a major deal with the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA), the state enterprise that runs Bangkok’s public bus service, and reputed to be the fourth largest city bus company in the world.

Under the agreement, RS Concepts will provide interior bus handle ads for 500 buses in Metropolitan Bangkok. Among the first clients for this are Fuji Film and Unilever’s Axe and Rexona brands, and Asia 21, a large dairy drink manufacturer.

Bus handle ads are innovative alternative media products that have been pioneered by RS Concepts in the Philippines, and are currently being offered for use in Light Rail Transit Authority’s trains.

RS Concepts’ deal with BMTA is representative of the burgeoning trend in Asia for non-traditional media.

Time and again, the Philippines has demonstrated that it ranks as one of the more marketing sophisticated Southeast Asian countries as far as advertising technology or non-conventional media innovations are concerned.

This has allowed RS Concepts to stake its claim on the growing non-traditional industry in urbanized Asian cities like Bangkok, Thailand. The company has found Thailand’s receptiveness to Philippine non-traditional marketing concepts beneficial. It is well-positioned to take advantage of expanded growth in Bangkok, especially with the emergency of the Extended Bangkok Metropolitan Region (EBMR) in the next few years.

Non-traditional advertising like electronic billboards and ambient media forms like transit ads are the biggest undercurrents driving the industry in progressive cities like Bangkok. They have proven to be effective marketing tools for brand-building, in an age when organization continually opt for ways to grow their business and market share, one of which is by tapping new creative channels like transit ads.

In Thailand, the outdoor advertising segment in Thailand has significantly grown in 2003, with firms veering away from costly television airtime to high quality outdoor ads. Nielsen Media Research Thailand reported high growth of 84.46 percent year-on-year to 2.29 billion baht for the first three quarters of last year.

The joint venture firm fomed by RS Concepts with Thai investors is called Asian Media Concepts Inc. It is part of RS Concepts’ significant expansions in emerging markets in Southeast Asia.