Chief executive officer Tapat Yuvaboon said Idea 360’s face-reading tool – Emotion Reader – was developed from MIT Media Lab’s work in the US.

The company providing the tool to Idea 360 is a rival of Emotien, a start-up company recently bought by Apple.

“It’s now the trend to find |consumers’ unconscious minds rather than to use a straight-|forward technique such as a |questionnaire to conduct market research, in particular among global companies that have established presences in the Thai market” he said.

Emotion Reader software can be used to appraise whether content in advertisements or TV programmes will be successful, to rate characters in a programme, analyse particular scenes, or to predict whether the content can go viral, he explained.

Using a normal webcam of a computer or mobile phone, the software detects “smile curves” of the audience and analyses their emotions changing with the scenes or particular characters.

Tapat said the company providing the tool to Idea 360 had collected the largest database, of around 3 million faces, and claimed an accuracy rate of 95 per cent.

Among Idea 360’s primary target customers for the new tool are advertising agencies, media companies, and fast-moving goods companies.

“Our initial target is media |firms that have to produce a lot |of content,” the CEO said, adding, “The tool can also be used for |testing advertisements, pre- and post- their launches. It can also |predict sales revenue of the products.”

The Emotion Reader will complement other immersive research tools, including in-depth interviews that can be conducted to validate the results.

Among the companies that have used this emotion-reading software are Unilever and CBS, he said.

Meanwhile, Tapat said Idea 360 had bucked the overall Thai economic trend, booking overall business growth of 30 per cent last year.

“When the economy is not good, we are usually doing well since companies want to increase their sales,” he said.

Chairman Paiboon Damrongchaitham said last week that he had been conferring with his legal team about taking legal action against the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) because the NBTC had failed to deliver on its promises to transition the country from analog to digital TV.

Key activities to create a terrestrial-based digital TV broadcasting system as the national broadcasting backbone were also not successful yet, he said.

For instance, penetration of digital TV among viewers remains low due to inefficiency of the digital TV coupon scheme.

A standard digital TV channel numbering system still cannot be applied across all media platforms following the NBTC’s weak law enforcement, he said.

Even though early this year the NBTC established a panel assigned to solve problems for troubled digital-TV operators, it could not agree to the requests from a group of digital TV broadcasters after two months of brainstorming.

Among the key requests, the financially strapped digital-TV players want the regulator to support them by delaying the third instalment of the upfront licence fee.

However, the NBTC argued that it could not comply because of legal restraints.

Under Section 42 of the Organisation to Assign Radio Frequencies and to Regulate Broadcasting and Telecommunications Services Act of 2010, all licence holders must pay the licence fee yearly at an appropriate rate for the type of licence in accordance with the Broadcasting Act.

“Once the regulator broke it promises, my company, which now runs the One 31 and GMM 25 digital TV channels, wants to be protected and treated fairly by petitioning to the court for a temporary injunction to delay the third instalment of the upfront licence fee, whose deadline is May 24,” Paiboon said.

One 31 and GMM 25 are among the seven major digital TV stations that last year sued the NBTC for damages at the Central Administrative Court, allegedly caused by the regulator’s negligence in guiding the transition from analog to digital TV.

The other five stations were PPTV, Thairath TV, Bright TV, Now 26 and Nation TV.

“We are the last brewery to come to the market. Currently, we are No 5 in the market. We hope to move up one position every year. Next year, we want to be No 4. After that, No 3, No 2, and eventually we aim to be No 1 in the market,” said Lester Tan, managing director of APB Alliance Brewery, the producer and distributor of Heineken in Myanmar.

Sales of the Dutch beer started six months ago. It is competing fiercely against local and foreign brands like Myanmar, Dagon, Mandalay, and Tuborg, a product of Carlsberg, which has gained more popularity despite controversies. Before Carlsberg started production in May 2015, the market had been dominated by local brewers.

Tan said that Myanmar showed huge market potential thanks to its fast urbanisation, population growth, economic expansion and increasing middle class. He believed that Myanmar would follow Vietnam, which has become one of the top three biggest markets of Heineken International in Asia Pacific in less than 10 years.

“Myanmar will be of growing importance to our global company too – and might become our next star country,” he said, adding that Myanmar’s per capita beer consumption is only three litres – much lower than its neighbour Thailand.

“This leads to a lot of room for growth for all players in the market. The whole beer market is growing so fast. Though we only started selling about six months ago, we were slightly above our plan. So we are happy with our business performance. The future is very, very good,” he said.

Tan sees the possibility of increasing investment soon due to overwhelming demand. The success story convinced him that the company – with marketing strength and strong relations with business partners – should not worry about the “Myanmar” beer and other domestic brands.

Heineken has invested US$60 million (Bt2 billion) in a beer factory in Yangon, which started operations last July with annual capacity of 245,000 hectolitres. It produces four brands – Heineken, Regal Seven, Tiger, ABC Extra Stout. As of February 28, the company employed 245 people including 56 female staff. Only 9 are expats.

This year, Myanmar is included in the UEFA Champion League trophy tour for the first time. The trophy tour will be in Yangon from March 20-26, accompanied by former Arsenal star Fredrik Ljungberg.

“Football is the most popular sport in Myanmar. Whether it is in the streets or the stadiums, and at teashops and sports bars, fans go all out to watch a match and support their favourite teams. We can’t wait to champion the trophy,” said Ko Ko Thein, deputy administrative director of Myanmar Football Federation, at the ceremony where the tour schedule was announced.

True Visions decided last week to notify the Broadcasting Committee in writing that it would move digital TV channels from the 11-46 slots up to the 1-36 slots on its cable and satellite system.

As True Visions is still waiting for approval from the committee, it has not yet disclosed the exact date for the switchover, but all 3.1 million subscribers will probably be able to watch digital TV channels with the same numbering as other media platforms next month.

Supinya Klangnarong, a member of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said yesterday that this was a very good signal reflecting great support from the major pay-TV operator.

The Broadcasting Committee would take up the matter today.

The company still strongly feels that the regulator’s order to rearrange digital TV channel numbers is unfair, so it has reserved its rights to legally protect its interests and seek compensation for any damages arising from the implementation of the NBTC’s order.

In November, True Visions petitioned the Central Administrative Court to revoke the NBTC’s digital TV channel numbering rule.

The court has held hearings but has not ruled on the case yet.

TrueVisions has faced fines since early this year when it insisted on reserving channels 11-46 for digital stations.

It was fined Bt20,000 a day since January 7, but since it still refused to comply with the NBTC’s order, the regulator decided on February 3 to raise the daily fine to Bt50,000 and add a fine of Bt1 million.