The strategy includes the launch of a dynamic Big logo, two flavours – BIG Coconut and BIG Lime Soda – BIG Aqua bottled water, and a special promotion for last part of this year.
These steps will strengthen BIG in the Thai market, Soren Lauridsen, director for Asia of AJE Group and managing director of AJE Thai, said yesterday.
Customers will now be able to recognise the new BIG identity on every product. The label, in both Thai and English, will come with a bigger and easier-to-read font and eye-catching yellow background.
A hummingbird, the smallest bird in the world that is capable of flying amazingly fast, has been added to the BIG logo to communicate the personality of the brand – that it is fearless among the soft-drink brands in the market, while being highly flexible and capable of rapid growth, according to AJE.
“BIG activities reflect our brand commitment of ‘Think BIG’, which is at the core of the BIG brand,” Lauridsen said.
“We do believe that our new beverage innovations and exciting campaigns will capture even more BIG fans in Thailand.”

The mall’s developer, Hua Hin Asset – a joint venture between The Mall Group and Proud Real Estate – said the project covered 200,000 square metres at a development cost of Bt5 billion.
Supaluck Umpujh, vice chairman of Hua Hin Asset, said the mall would become a new magnet to attract both Thai and foreign tourists into Hua Hin.
“The new mall is expected to attract 20,000 visitors per day during the low season, rising to 60,000 during the peak season,” she said.
Of the Bt7 billion in revenue expected to be generated in the first year, the joint venture anticipates about Bt2.5 billion will come from the mall’s department store, she added.
According to tourism data, Hua Hin is the fourth most popular Thai destination, with tourist arrivals of 6 million last year, higher than Chiang Mai, which had around 5 million.
The top three destinations were Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya, with 23 million, 15 million and 10 million tourists, respectively.
Hua Hin is also home to more than 15,000 expatriates.
Pasu Liptapanlop , executive director of Hua Hin Asset, said the Bluport Hua Hin Resort Mall was the latest project undertaken by the Liptapanlop family, led by Suwat Liptapanlop, a former deputy prime minister.
The family currently operates a theme park and three hotels in the area, with a further hotel under development.
Pasu said Hua Hin Asset was now considering the second phase of its Bluport Hua Hin project, under which it might develop more attractions as well as residential units on a plot of land next to the new mall.
Such additional development is expected to be seen in the next two years, he added.
The executive director also said the company planned to operate or manage seven more theme parks in Thailand and overseas, including one in Phuket that would be double the size of the water park in Hua Hin.

Christian Wurm, general manager of the hotel, said more services were planned for guests during the remainder of the year.
The first is a pet-friendly concept, under which the hotel will offer five rooms specifically for guests with cats and dogs. The new service is expected to be available in the final quarter.
“We did some research and found that some guests needed rooms for small animals like cats and dogs, so we will offer this option for them. A few other hotels in Hua Hin have already added this service to cater to the trend,” he said. On December 1, the hotel is scheduled to open an expanded shop, Resort Boutique, which is located in its main lobby.
The enlarged store will have special amenities, along with beauty and wellness products.
Wurm added that the hotel also planned to focus more on families and the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) market in the coming year.
“For the MICE segment, we will invite event planners to visit the hotel with a view to our hosting small and medium-size events.
This is expected to fill rooms during the off season, and also on weekdays,” he explained.
The families market, meanwhile, will be encouraged through new activities such as classes in local music, drawing and painting, and creative activities at the hotel’s kids’ club.
The hotel last month turned its Talay Thai Restaurant into a more casual dining environment, in an attempt to get more customers to eat in rather than use other restaurants in the town.
It has also developed its digital services, offering guests a device on which an application features all room-service options, food and beverage facilities and prices at the hotel, the general manager said.
At The Barai, a water-yoga service is set to be added to the wellness package next year, following the recent multi-million-baht purchase of a body check-up machine.
Moreover, the hotel has recently hired a Chinese-speaking staff member to assist guests from the rapidly emerging mainland China market.
The hotel is confident it can secure new customers and maintain repeat visitors during this year’s high season, Wurm stressed, adding that it hoped to operate at an average occupancy rate for the period at the same level as last year, 92 per cent, judging from current advance bookings from core markets.
“We have made moves to cope with the high season since experiencing the cancellation of 1,000 room-nights booked for the next six months after the bomb blasts in Hua Hin in August,” the GM said.
To restore tourism, stakeholders in Hua Hin are promoting the area as a wellness and golf destination, as well featuring many theme parks, in an effort to bring in many more Thai and foreign visitors.
The clientele at the Hyatt Regency Hua Hin and The Barai is split 50:50 between local and foreign guests, with overseas visitors mostly coming from Germany, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Singapore and Hong Kong, he said.
The number of visitors from mainland China is also showing significant growth, he added.

The seller-focused educational and training facility spans 930 square metres in Bhiraj Tower at EmQuartier.
The Campus is separated into various zones with a wide range of services for small and medium-sized enterprises. It is equipped with photo studios with state-of-the-art technology capable of 360-degree product shots with which businesses can showcase their products.
The most popular categories for Thais selling products on 11street include fashion, beauty, electronics, leisure, sports, and children’s and infant goods.
“Thailand is the fifth global location for 11street and we are staying true to our commitment in making 11street the easiest to use for both Thai sellers and buyers,” said Hong Cheol Jeon, chief executive of 11street (Thailand).
“The dedicated on-ground support for sellers at our 11street Campus will not only bring us closer to our local partners, but will also allow 11street to share and educate Thai SMEs on the latest resources we have from our global expertise in creating leading online e-commerce platforms around the world, and help Thai sellers profile their products better online.
“Right now we have more than 2,000 sellers registered to our platform, and we are anticipating [increasing] that to nearly 20,000 sellers by [the] end of 2017.”
In addition to photo studies, the 11street Campus will conduct education workshops for sellers in classrooms with onsite personal computers.
These classes are free for 11street sellers, and topics range from photo editing to pricing strategy.
In addition to classes at its Campus, there are online seminars and video clips to guide sellers in e-commerce operations.
The firm says these educational workshops aim to help sellers gain additional competitive advantages when selling online, and the dedicated support and training from 11street will help new sellers learn more about product content creation, packaging and delivery, in addition to other services.
A mobile application to be launched next quarter will give local shoppers and sellers an additional channel that is convenient, secure, highly mobile and easy to use, the firm says. Both the 11street website and mobile application will host a large collection of local and foreign products at reasonable prices, including on-trend South Korean items that are popular in Thailand, it says.

Tan Hak Leh has 25 years ex-periences in insurance industry |and before joining AIA Thailand, he was the Group Chief Risk officer and before that he was CEO at AIA Singapore.
In an interview at the Grand Summit London, Hak Leh said that he wants AIA Thailand staff to focus on a commitment to their work every day to ensure the company stays No 1 in the Thai market.
The AIA Group has 18 markets, and Thailand is the second-largest market in terms of premiums and profit to the group. It currently has 5.5 million customers here.
Hak Leh said his challenge is to make Thais realise the importance of having insurance and convince them that life insurance can help manage incomes.
In his view, Thailand has substantial growth potential, and the company plans to recruit younger agents to help it the firm reach its goals.
“Our agent recruitment is successful in the financial adviser programme (FA). It is a big commitment for AIA Thailand to make for everyone we recruit under the FA programme. We give them three months of training so that by the time they have finished they have a good understanding of how to do proper financial planning for customers and a good understanding of how to make good recommendations for policyholders,” he said.
Under the FA programme, successful agents are qualified to sell investment products under the Investment Consultant (IC) licence.
AIA Thailand has around 50,000 agents, of which 7,000 FAs have an IC licence.
Hak Leh said his other mission is to get everyone in the company to embrace innovation because the market is changing.
“We understand the market is changing in Thailand and because of that we need to innovate. We recently rolled out some important initiatives. One of them is AIA Vitality. Vitality provides protection and long-term savings and also helps [customers] lead a healthy life,” he said.
He said that to persuade people to change their habits is not easy, so that is why the company needs to capitalise on its agents to share experiences with customers.
“Embracing initiatives such as AIA Vitality … is a new way to train our agency forces in the financial adviser (FA) programme, so that from one quarter to the next quarter AIA Thailand will become stronger. It is not just about the compensation but it is the mindset that we should focus on and be able to innovate,” he said.
To him, the people development and the innovation changes are crucial for long term business growth and long-term careers of agents. He acknowledges, however, that change will not happen overnight and he will have to spend a lot of time communicating with his Thai colleagues.
Innovation changes happen in many areas including new technology, he said. In order to provide better services to the customers, AIA developed iPoS as the tool for agents, he said. iPoS is smartphone application for agents that support all aspects of sales as well as administration.
iPoS was introduced a few years ago in 11 markets from the 18 markets where AIA operates.
In the first half of this year, 700,000 new policies in the 11 |markets were submitted via iPoS and those policies captured 50 per cent of the new business of AIA Group.
Ng Keng Hooi, regional chief executive of AIA Group, said the Thai market provides huge opportunities for AIA Group.
On the possibility of Thailand becoming the largest business of AIA Group, Keng Hooi said that nothing is impossible, although Hong Kong with the largest market in the AIA Group, is very big business.
“I cannot tell you right now about the figures but I can tell you that in the future Thailand is the big business for the group,” said Keng Hooi.
Apart from Thailand, the AIA Group has representative offices in Cambodia and Myanmar. The group is waiting for licence approval in both countries.