No advertising for beer? Then we pretend it's water...
The English Premier League has started again. I watched it until last year via CTH's satellite, since this club went down ingloriously (I still get 700 baht from them) True Visions is the best option. For less than 400 baht per month I receive four football / sports channels via the dish.
The Thai government prohibits the advertising of alcoholic beverages. This even goes so far that even on social media, images of bottles of alcohol are not allowed, under penalty of a fine and/or imprisonment. So be careful if you let yourself be photographed on the beach (or anywhere else) with a golden yellow rascal in your hand. The holiday could take an unexpected turn.
Not that everyone adheres to this prohibition... Girls with Chang dresses can still be seen at numerous festivities. It's like often in Thailand: it's not allowed, but it's turned a blind eye. Occasionally an offender is publicly pilloried, but that's about it. The power of the alcoholic companies is great and the upper and underworld are often intertwined.
In any case, alcohol on TV is out of the question. The problem with foreign football matches is that advertisements can hardly be avoided. Because True Visions is a Thai company, the government has a little more control over it. So no advertising for alcohol.
However, Thai companies have not fallen on the back of their heads either. No promotion for Leo beer, then we will advertise Leo water. Now let this have the same logo as the alcoholic beer sister. But not too often, otherwise the government will notice and intervene. Other beer brands also offer water and it is only a matter of time before they follow Leo. The question is what happens if Heineken wants to advertise non-alcoholic beer…
The Thai government prohibits the advertising of alcoholic beverages.
Is that really so? Was it no longer about well-known people, including from the TV world or the film, who appeared on the screen with a glass or bottle in their hand? The extra maybe (extra) generated income, that's what people talked about.
Advertising alcohol on social media is indeed prohibited. This involves encouraging people to drink. Indeed, bar employees have been charged with that offense. But to now write "So be careful if you allow yourself to be photographed on the beach (or anywhere else) with a golden yellow rascal in your hand" is somewhat of a slight exaggeration.
Also no alcohol sales around schools, No sales in the supermarket outside certain times, No alcohol on some holidays. But increase the excise duty to have more income. Hypocritical.
“No person may conduct an advertisement of an alcoholic beverage or express the name or sign of such beverage in a manner directly or indirectly claiming the existence of certain properties of or encouraging another to consume an alcoholic beverage.
A manufacturer of an alcoholic beverage, irrespective of its kind, may conduct an advertisement or act of public relations only in a manner providing information and knowledge beneficial to the society, without any picture of an alcoholic beverage product or its package, save a picture of its sign or sign of the manufacturer. This shall be subject to a ministerial regulation.
The provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 shall not apply to an advertisement of foreign origin.”
According to Section 32 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.
And that is then further elaborated in a Ministerial Regulation.
Food for lawyers. You may therefore not advertise in a way that claims certain properties of the drink or encourages drinking of the product, but only in a way that information and knowledge is transferred to society for the benefit of society. Cheers!
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https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Alcoholic_Beverage_Control_Act,_BE_2551_(2008)
Can I also be careful with my name? And I can give my Singa, Chang and Tiger shirts, of course all sleeveless, to the lorrenboer. In a plastic bag of course, there are enough of those around Thailand.
And the poor, with whom this government says it is so touchingly concerned, are of course no longer allowed to sleep under their free Beer Chang blankets when it gets chilly again in Isaan!
If you look at the advertising signs (with or without lighting) you will see that you do not encounter the word beer, rum or whatever. Just a brand name and logo. For example, with the older Chang advertising displays you can see that a green sticker has been pasted over the word bear or has been painted over. There is therefore no advertising for alcoholic beverages. The well-known persons on TV with a beer bottle were fined because it would be incitement to drink alcohol.
Ah….Governments and their plans. Small children often have more sense of reality. Especially the current government, which started somewhat energetically, is starting to release a lot of trial balloons and comes up with a lot of very amateurish delusions.
If everyone sacrificed to Bacchus in moderation, this would never have happened. It is the excesses of excessive alcohol intake and the consequential damage that affects society and causes suffering to others and often to the person in question.
In America there are areas where you get paper bags to transport alcoholic beverages on public roads. Alcoholic beverages may not be displayed visibly. It all depends on what you prioritize and the government of course has a duty to care for its citizens. But indeed money rules and double standards will probably remain.
Although I also occasionally consume alcoholic beverages, I have no problem with advertising for them disappearing. If those idiotic photos on facebook can no longer be seen, so much the better. Do you need to be able to boast that you can drink ten or twenty beers in one night? You might as well call. See, my body is already so affected by alcohol that it takes me ten beers to feel it.
At the beginning of this week I did not understand why there was so much fuss about electronic cigarettes. Turns out these contain just as many other toxins.
Everything that is unhealthy for you and your environment should be limited and not promoted to a healthy lifestyle by beautiful advertisements.
A beautiful country but these kind of rules ???? Don't get mad, we are considering leaving!