After a megabrewer got into hot, sudsy water for plastering its logo on flags promoting Phuket’s Vegetarian Festival – a famously “dry” holiday – it quickly sought to resolve the issue with a color change. Because blue means water, got it?
Saran Mitrarat has the story for The Phuket News:
THE PHUKET NEWS — Brewing giant ThaiBev has jumped to correct sponsorship flags for the Vegetarian Festival after the Public Health Department filed a complaint with Phuket Town police that the company was illegally advertising beer.
The complaint came after yellow flags were erected around the city with the Chang logo and the word “Chang” on a green background.
ThaiBev has generally used the green background to market beer and a blue background to market its drinking water.
Today the green-logo flags were taken down and replaced with flags bearing the logo on a blue background.
In addition, the company erected large roadside signs saying, “Chang drinking water supports Phuket’s Vegetarian Festival”
ThaiBev’s Phuket Manager told The Phuket News this morning. “In fact, we oroginally registered the trademark using a green logo.
“[By putting the green logo on flags] we did not intend to promote or support alcohol use during the festival; we know very well that this is not allowed.
“We had good intentions to support the great cultural vegetarian festival – we did not intend to damage its image,” she explained.
The rush to fix the flags came after Dr Krit Sakulpad of the PHD lodged a complaint with Phuket Town police that ThaiBev was using the Vegetarian Festival to promote its beer, which would be a breach of the 2009 Alcohol Control Act.
“To make sure everyone is satisfied, we are happy to change all the flag logo to blue ones,” she noted. “All flags have now been changed by sticking a blue logo [over the green one].”
A lawyer has been retained to answer the accusation by the PHD, and the company will hold a media conference soon in an effort to minimise the damage.
Meanwhile, Teeravut Sritularak, President of the Jui Tui shrine – which received sponsorship from ThaiBev – confirmed that ThaiBev had signed a contract with the shrine based on advertising its drinking water.
“They supported us this year as in previous years, using the blue logo for Chang drinking water,” he told The Phuket News.
“The flags along the roads are made and installed by the sponsors themselves. ThaiBev used a blue logo last year, so possibly there was some mistake along the way this year,” he explained.
“All flags are now changed already. I want to thank ThaiBev for kindly supporting us and decorate the streets of Phuket to promote the Vegetarian Festival for us,” he added.
Although it was originally suggested that the Jui Tui shrine would also face legal action, Mr Teeravut said, “The case will involve only ThaiBev and the PHD. Jui Tui will not be involved.”
Dr Krit told The Phuket News today that he would not withdraw his complaint because the offense had already been committed.
Photo: The Phuket News
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Conflicting message: Chang in trouble for logos on VegFest flags
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