Thai credit card
company targets gay market

Thailand's leading credit card company is attempting to tap into a growing group of big spenders--gays and lesbians. A recently released TV commercial by Krungthai Card (KTC) has caused a stir with its provocative gay undertones, according to the Star Online.

The commercial, titled "Stand Up...Say I Am," depicts a hip Bangkok bar where a ravishing Thai woman looks flirtatiously into her handsome neighbor's eyes. Who are you? she thinks as the Thai man meets her gaze. The audience is then cycled through a series of sexualized possibilities: the woman sleeping in bed, with the man watching her; the man admiring himself in a bathroom mirror; the two dancing; and the man lounging in a sauna with a handful of hunky men. Back at the bar, as the woman leans in to kiss him, she notices that he is staring lustfully at someone behind her. She slowly turns her head to see a man seductively raising an eyebrow at her would-be lover.

Then a voice-over declares, "I am...KTC Titanium MasterCard."

The ad is targeted at gay consumers--jokingly called the "pink baht market"--confirmed Niwatt Chittalarn, president and CEO of KTC, to The Star Online. But it is also aimed at the growing "metrosexual" market. In that past few years, metrosexuality has become increasingly trendy in cosmopolitan Bangkok.

When KTC studied the gay and metrosexual populations, it found that they were big spenders. Five months ago the company decided to tap this lucrative market.

Times are changing, Chittalarn explained to the Star Online. "One day you sit down with your friend and he influences you to appreciate fusion food, yoga, male cosmetics, or stylish spectacles," he says. "Men living in big cities like Bangkok, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur are now adopting a more fashionable lifestyle."

KTC is known for targeting niche markets, providing close to 100 cards cobranded with other companies, such as the KTC Bangkok Hospital Group Visa Platinum, the KTC Mazda Titanium MasterCard, and the KTC Bangkok Airways Titanium MasterCard. (The Advocate)