Asia Sponsorship News (ASN) has just released its 2023 Thailand sponsorship market overview with commentary from local agencies on the performance of the Southeast Asian marketplace.
Following the gloom of the COVID-19 pandemic period, Thailand’s economy started to show consistent growth from Q4 2021 rising to 4.5 percent in Q3 2022. Projections are for 3.6 percent by Q4 2023. The economy has shown resilience, with the tourism sector recovery and private consumption remaining the major drivers of growth.
Reflecting the return to GDP growth, Thailand’s post-pandemic sponsorship spending recovery curve outdid every other significant player in Asia, with 2022 concluding at USD172 million or 62 percent of 2019 spend (itself a record year at +25 percent on 2018).
Commenting on the market recovery, Paul Poole, Founder of Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co., Ltd. – a marketing consultancy specialising in commercial sponsorship in Thailand said: “Thailand has truly bounced back with a sizable increase of 83 percent in sponsorship spend over the 2021 pandemic low. With spending at 62 percent of 2019, Thailand’s recovery beat all other Southeast Asian markets; Singapore stands at 30 percent, Malaysia 53 percent, Philippines 23 percent and Indonesia 28 percent of their 2019 results. Confidence has returned to the Kingdom with brands like Chang, King Power, Singha and Toyota all spending in excess of USD10 million each on sponsorship in 2022 alone.”
Particularly notable for their robust post-pandemic recovery were football and golf. Thailand is the biggest market in Southeast Asia for football and ranks fourth in Asia overall, so out-performing other platforms is to be expected.
As for golf, throughout the pandemic golf tournaments were abandoned all over Asia – but not in Thailand, where the following tournaments were staged in spite of pandemic restrictions: Singha Laguna Phuket Open October 2020, Honda LPGA Thailand Open May 2021, Singha Chiang Mai Open November 2021 and the ASEAN PGA Tour: Singha Esan Open February 2022, Thai LPGA Championship March 2022 and Honda LPGA Thailand Open March 2022.
Thailand ranked fourth in the whole of Asia for sponsorship spending, accounting for 3.1 percent of all Asian spend in 2022 (up compared to 2019’s 1.9 percent) and ranked first in Southeast Asia, where it accounted for 53 percent of all Southeast Asia spending (compared to 40 percent in 2019). However, Thailand was dwarfed by both Japan and China which both outstripped it by x4 and x18 respectively.
Spending by Thailand’s 10 leading brands changed little over the period 2019 to 2022, and most retained their relative positions in the ‘league table’. The exception was the PTT Group, which went from second biggest spender in 2019 with USD16.6 million to eighth place in 2022, reducing its investment by USD12.6 million to just USD4 million.
The 2022 ‘Top 10’ were:
| (US$ million) | ||
| 1. | King Power | 21.0 |
| 2. | Chang | 12.5 |
| 3. | Toyota | 12.3 |
| 4. | Singha | 10.7 |
| 5. | Carabao | 8.1 |
| 6. | Adidas | 5.6 |
| 7. | Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) | 5.3 |
| 8. | PTT Group | 4.0 |
| 9. | Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) | 4.0 |
| 10. | M-150 | 2.9 |
These top 10 brands represented 50 percent of the total investment in Thailand and 24 percent of investment in the whole of Southeast Asia, while the next ranking 15 brands accounted for just an additional 15 percent of the Thailand total.
The top 10 sponsorship categories posted a whopping 44 percent increase in spending over 2021 but dropped 37 percent compared with pre-pandemic 2019. At the same time, a significant change at the top saw retail draw level with traditional leader alcoholic beverages, at just over USD24 million each. Retail numbers reflect King Power’s sponsorship of English Premier League club Leicester City FC.
There has been a significant shift in favour of sport against non-sport during the report period, with sport sponsorship accounting for 91 percent of all sponsorship in Thailand, compared to 85 percent in 2019, when the top five non-sport deals generated USD10.6 million, all on branded content for TV.
In 2022, the biggest non-sport deal came in at USD630,000 and the top five deals combined reached only USD2.6 million. Non-sport spending in 2022 accounted for only 9 percent of the total Thailand sponsorship spending compared to 15 percent in 2019.
Football continues to dominate, accounting for 50 percent of all sponsorship spend in Thailand with golf at 12 percent and motorsports 8 percent. One to watch is volleyball, accounting for only 4 percent of total sponsorship in 2022, but bucking the trend with a huge 76 percent increase over 2019.
In line with its domestic economic achievement, the Thai market has out-performed its neighbours during the pandemic exit. The collapse of the non-sport sector over the report period is driven by the effective disappearance of branded content for traditional TV, while Netflix and other OTT companies are poised to pick up what spending is available.
ASN is the leading market intelligence service for the sponsorship industry in Asia, which distributes independent news, analytics and insights on a subscription basis, with a bespoke consultancy and training service.
ASN is operated by Asia Sponsorship News Co., Ltd. a subsidiary of Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co., Ltd.
Paul Poole (South East Asia) Co., Ltd. is an independent marketing consultancy based in Bangkok, Thailand specialising in commercial sponsorship and partnership marketing, working with both rights holders and brands - acting as a catalyst by bringing them together and maximising the relationship.
We have packaged, sold and managed sponsorship and partnership opportunities for a wide range of rights holders and worked with many of the world’s leading brands to source and engage the right sponsorships and partnerships for them to maximise.
