Not surprisingly, cigarette manufacturers were the first to react against the Public Health Ministry’s plan to prohibit the display of cigarettes at points of sale. Their claim that they were being treated unfairly is understandable. Banning the display of a product at retail outlets ends that product’s visibility among the public, so much so that the line dividing it from illegal products becomes extremely thin.
If this plan goes ahead, anti-smoking advocates will no doubt dance a jig of joy. It may also help the effort to curb smoking, But unlike the graphic pictures placed on cigarette packets it is doubtful whether it will meet the objective of preventing youngsters from taking to tobacco.
The question is whether the measure is logical. If the products disappear from store shelves, will this translate into fewer smokers? Will it serve to help discourage youngsters from experimenting with a puff or two? I doubt it. Speaking from my own experience, smokers share one trait in common: they keep their smoking habit a secret when they are using money they have not earned to pay for cigarettes. So, buying cigarettes is a subversive act for them. Sad to say, but the more subversive a youngster regards a particular act, the more they are tempted to give it a go.
A few decades ago, when foreign brands weren’t available legally, smokers of my generation would buy them from vendors who displayed only empty boxes. From my own experience as a smoker and as a non-smoker, I can say that seeing cigarettes on display has not been a determining factor in my decision to buy them. You don’t feel like grabbing a pack when you see a well-known brand on the rack. The time you really feel like a cigarette is simply when you feel like smoking - it’s as simple and as complicated as that.
Preventing youngsters from becoming cigarette smokers is yet another argument made by advocates who want to see the product made invisible in public. I tend to agree with a message posted on the community website pantip.com, which said that teenagers are not attracted simply by seeing products on display. Think about drugs like amphetamine and ecstasy. Have you ever seen them on display? They are not visible in shops but what reminds us of them is the number of abusers.
However, marketing gurus believe that the clear visibility of cigarettes lures in new customers, as it would with a new brand of instant noodles or green tea.
But the issue of young people and cigarettes is more complicated than that.
We were once teenagers and we should know that we preferred to explore areas that were off limits.
This is perhaps a dilemma for the ministry and health activists. You could make cigarettes more accessible - but then promote them as being the domain of old-fashioned people, like a dying fashion brand. Or you can send them underground and tempt teenagers into believing that it’s cool and chic to smoke.
So far, measures like banning smoking in all public places and printing graphic pictures on the cigarette packages have had some positive feedback. Although youngsters love to be cool, they certainly don’t want to be in a minority.
The warning on the packet does convey the message that beautiful people have to be healthy. Though of course you could also say, as Prabda Yoon has, that “Smoking can cause bad photographs.”
Adult puffers are fully aware of their minority status and the lack of having the products on display wouldn’t worry them. They know where they can get their nicotine sticks and they are also well informed about where they can puff without getting fined.
If the display of a product is perceived as a kind of advertisement and deserves to be banned, health activists should perhaps also campaign against the visibility of smokers. They remind everyone of smoking.
And those smoking rooms at the airports, or the small smoking and non-smoking signs here and there - don’t they also remind us of cigarettes and their consumers?
So let’s hope for the best - that the number of smokers in Thailand falls. Let’s also hope that all we’ve done so far will bring about the best results.
Published on August 06, 2005
Showing posts with label government policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government policy. Show all posts
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Bangkok, it's time to loosen up and live!
It was only in preparation for a recent interview with fashion expert Georgianna Appignani from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology that I started thinking, for the first time in a while, about my own fashion sense. How could I possibly turn up dressed as I do at the office to discuss Bangkok's prospect for becoming a global fashion mecca?
Like many, I was wrong to assume that Appignani was the key to unlocking the latent haute couture vibrancy we assume is lurking in the city, waiting to be unleashed. In fact, her task as an advisor to the Thai Garment Development Foundation is to advise on the establishment of a fashion institute. Somewhat more practical, if less visionary.
Still, according to Appignani, cities don't become fashion hubs without a top-rate fashion institute. She cites the Polimoda institute in Florence, Italy, which she set up and where she served as director from 1992 to 2001. Polimoda, she says, produces the human resources necessary to maintain and build upon Italy's famed fashion industry. China, meanwhile, recently set up two institutes in Donghua and Zhejiang.
The establishment of an institute is the first step towards becoming a fashion city. And such cities don't necessarily have to be the best-dressed, Appignani points out. What's important is that fashions from the city sell well. City residents needn't be fashionistas themselves, though it helps build the overall couture culture, she says.
Appignani steered the conversation away from generalisations about Bangkok's chances of making a real dent in the world of high fashion. She'd much rather discuss building the institute first, and let the good results follow as they will. She's right. How can any one person come here and turn things around to make Bangkok a world fashion destination?
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra loves the idea and last year gave the greenlight to a project to attempt just that very thing.
Good luck, but there remain a few things to be done if we want the plan to have any chance of succeeding. I'll admit I don't have any fashion background to speak of, but here are a few minor items I suggest we improve before we declare our capital a "fashion city".
- Get rid of the dinosaurs in the Culture Ministry. These are the people who openly or secretly criticise the way youngsters dress themselves. With this bunch in positions of power, you can't expect Bangkok to become adventurous and experimental.
- The Education Ministry should revoke the rule requiring college and university uniforms. Students don't have to think about their dress (bad practice for art and fashion students), and they don't need to buy much in the way of clothing because there are so few days they have a choice in their appearance (bad for consumerism in general). Even when uniform designs are adapted to current fashions, it's often met with abuse - like the body-hugging blouses worn by female students, which are denounced as "too sexy".
- Add more pedestrian streets. There are few streets in the city where one can stroll socially. And believe me, without pedestrian-friendly space, there's not much motive for women to don beautiful clothes for an eye-turning stroll on the piazza.
- Get rid of uniforms in government agencies such as the military and the police. They all look so awful and unfriendly. If government officials don't have the freedom to decide how to dress, how does the state think it can somehow promote "creativity" here?
- Install DJs on every street corner to turn the capital into one large "catwalk".
- Make it cheap to dress well! All we talk about is Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Christian Dior, Prada, Versace, Celine, etc. Why? The designer fashions and leatherwear are subject to a luxury-import tax of 20 to 40 per cent. Luxury brands are priced higher than in any other key Asian shopping destination. So we end up selling less even though the brands themselves are well-established. We Thais tend to be attracted to brands for all the wrong reasons - their price tags.
- Replace faux satin motorcycle taxi driver's vests with leather versions by the House of Dior. Imagine how chic the city would be with over 100,000 fashionable motorcyclists in Bangkok at every street corner.
- Change the word "somtam" to "julienned mango al dente with piquant essence of garlic ala Bangkok". All somtam vendors should claim they are "fusion" bistros with limited seating capacity.
- Outlaw the "tropical holiday" look and insist that farangs vacationing in Thailand wear the same clothing they do at home. They can don the "backpacker uniform" only in the restricted zone of Khaosan Road. Gentlemen, let's cover up those vericose veins in the finest grey worsted wool . . . we don't care what the thermometer says!
- Lower the tax on wine and raise it on Dr Pepper.
- Declare Klong Toey Market an "installation art piece". If successful, many more projects could follow, and no need to hide vast tracts of the city from the Apec delegates.
- Conduct all drug tests at the Bed Supper Club and Qbar with Baccarat crystalware.
- All amulets, phalluses and tiger's teeth must be traded through Sotheby's. Anyone caught visiting eBay will be made to go through snob re-education camp.
- Lottery tickets redesigned by Paul Frank, tuk-tuks by Lexus, and at least one daily photo of Naomi Cambell or Kate Moss on the front page of Thai Rath.
- I know the guy's great, but if you really want Bangkok to become a fashion hub, don't vote for Purachai Piumsombun as the next governor. His victory will bring an end to evening dress completely.
- Last but not least, the whole society needs to loosen up. Fashion is about liberty, creativity and respect towards what others are doing.
Published on Sep 13, 2003
Like many, I was wrong to assume that Appignani was the key to unlocking the latent haute couture vibrancy we assume is lurking in the city, waiting to be unleashed. In fact, her task as an advisor to the Thai Garment Development Foundation is to advise on the establishment of a fashion institute. Somewhat more practical, if less visionary.
Still, according to Appignani, cities don't become fashion hubs without a top-rate fashion institute. She cites the Polimoda institute in Florence, Italy, which she set up and where she served as director from 1992 to 2001. Polimoda, she says, produces the human resources necessary to maintain and build upon Italy's famed fashion industry. China, meanwhile, recently set up two institutes in Donghua and Zhejiang.
The establishment of an institute is the first step towards becoming a fashion city. And such cities don't necessarily have to be the best-dressed, Appignani points out. What's important is that fashions from the city sell well. City residents needn't be fashionistas themselves, though it helps build the overall couture culture, she says.
Appignani steered the conversation away from generalisations about Bangkok's chances of making a real dent in the world of high fashion. She'd much rather discuss building the institute first, and let the good results follow as they will. She's right. How can any one person come here and turn things around to make Bangkok a world fashion destination?
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra loves the idea and last year gave the greenlight to a project to attempt just that very thing.
Good luck, but there remain a few things to be done if we want the plan to have any chance of succeeding. I'll admit I don't have any fashion background to speak of, but here are a few minor items I suggest we improve before we declare our capital a "fashion city".
- Get rid of the dinosaurs in the Culture Ministry. These are the people who openly or secretly criticise the way youngsters dress themselves. With this bunch in positions of power, you can't expect Bangkok to become adventurous and experimental.
- The Education Ministry should revoke the rule requiring college and university uniforms. Students don't have to think about their dress (bad practice for art and fashion students), and they don't need to buy much in the way of clothing because there are so few days they have a choice in their appearance (bad for consumerism in general). Even when uniform designs are adapted to current fashions, it's often met with abuse - like the body-hugging blouses worn by female students, which are denounced as "too sexy".
- Add more pedestrian streets. There are few streets in the city where one can stroll socially. And believe me, without pedestrian-friendly space, there's not much motive for women to don beautiful clothes for an eye-turning stroll on the piazza.
- Get rid of uniforms in government agencies such as the military and the police. They all look so awful and unfriendly. If government officials don't have the freedom to decide how to dress, how does the state think it can somehow promote "creativity" here?
- Install DJs on every street corner to turn the capital into one large "catwalk".
- Make it cheap to dress well! All we talk about is Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Christian Dior, Prada, Versace, Celine, etc. Why? The designer fashions and leatherwear are subject to a luxury-import tax of 20 to 40 per cent. Luxury brands are priced higher than in any other key Asian shopping destination. So we end up selling less even though the brands themselves are well-established. We Thais tend to be attracted to brands for all the wrong reasons - their price tags.
- Replace faux satin motorcycle taxi driver's vests with leather versions by the House of Dior. Imagine how chic the city would be with over 100,000 fashionable motorcyclists in Bangkok at every street corner.
- Change the word "somtam" to "julienned mango al dente with piquant essence of garlic ala Bangkok". All somtam vendors should claim they are "fusion" bistros with limited seating capacity.
- Outlaw the "tropical holiday" look and insist that farangs vacationing in Thailand wear the same clothing they do at home. They can don the "backpacker uniform" only in the restricted zone of Khaosan Road. Gentlemen, let's cover up those vericose veins in the finest grey worsted wool . . . we don't care what the thermometer says!
- Lower the tax on wine and raise it on Dr Pepper.
- Declare Klong Toey Market an "installation art piece". If successful, many more projects could follow, and no need to hide vast tracts of the city from the Apec delegates.
- Conduct all drug tests at the Bed Supper Club and Qbar with Baccarat crystalware.
- All amulets, phalluses and tiger's teeth must be traded through Sotheby's. Anyone caught visiting eBay will be made to go through snob re-education camp.
- Lottery tickets redesigned by Paul Frank, tuk-tuks by Lexus, and at least one daily photo of Naomi Cambell or Kate Moss on the front page of Thai Rath.
- I know the guy's great, but if you really want Bangkok to become a fashion hub, don't vote for Purachai Piumsombun as the next governor. His victory will bring an end to evening dress completely.
- Last but not least, the whole society needs to loosen up. Fashion is about liberty, creativity and respect towards what others are doing.
Published on Sep 13, 2003
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