Thailand Connect, Offshoot Of Baht & Sold

Thailand Connect, Offshoot of Baht & Sold

I've written before about the successful Baht & Sold; Thailand Connect is the hard-copy successor to that initial plain-paper tabloid-style advertising medium.

The former still has an online presence, where you can run ads up to 35 words for free. The former broadsheet has been superseded by the latter, which is a beautiful, glossy paper, magazine, not a broadsheet.

The February edition of Thailand Connect weighs in at a hefty 50 pages -- and that's despite the magazine suffering a loss of advertising in the wake of the tsunami disaster last December.

Thailand Connect includes columns by on-the-scene writers in a variety of destinations around the Kingdom: Chiang Mai and Region; Udorn Thani, Korat, and Region; Bangkok and Region; Koh Chang; Pattaya and Region; Phuket and Region plus a Krabi feature; Koh Samui and Region; Suirn; and a night scene column about Bangkok. (You'll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the magazine and its columns online. There are 2 versions of the latest version, which is Version 7.0, one basic at about 12MB, the fuller one at about 20MB. The link takes you to the download page for various versions, not just 7.0.)

The advertising magazine is enjoying great success due to the unflagging efforts of its founder, the affable Daniel. In an amazingly short time the magazine as rapidly blossomed, and not only in format, layout, and number of pages, but, critically, number of distribution points.

And the advertising rates are very reasonable. For example, a business-card size ad with color runs 1500 baht/month. While for now the publication is a monthly one, given the wide distribution and circulation, that's a bargain -- I plan to take one for this web site, in fact.

In most places, the magazine is free, though if you pick one up at a news stand it runs 50 baht.

If you spot one, give it a look. The columns alone make it worthwhile.

--BangkokAtoZ.com 2005-02-18