How To Catch The Bangkok Journalist

I’ve been to countless press conferences. Mostly the content draws you to the event. Maybe there’s a promising photo op. It’s a habit though in Thailand that some lunch or gift has to be offered, otherwise hardly any journalist would turn up.

But gosh look what flew into the mailbox: “You are cordially invited to attend the Press Conference on The Unveiling Of The World’s Largest Permanent Orchid Garden (with more than 250 species!) at The Nai Lert Park Hotel …”

The catch – further down: “All Press Journalists, Reporters, Editors, Photojournalists, News Photographers, News Camera crew are urged to bring along their business cards as there will be, besides the usual Press-Giveaways, a lucky draw for twenty-five household gifts from Central worth more than 200,000 baht.”

Note: “Besides the usual Press-Giveaways” … Don’t you love to be a journalist in Bangkok. Well, at least for me the event was a no-show. Even though the glamorous affair promised a who’s who of Bangkok’s political, business and lifestyle world. Hmm.

Such as the Thai celebrities Mario Maurer, Kwan Usamanee, Dome Pakornlum, Peuy Panward (!), Nat Dhephasadin Na Ayudhaya Tact Tarunyu, and and. Names you never heard of?

How about the special side fashion show with the “Orchid Boys” and the Orchid Garden Creation featuring prominent male models in underwear made up of orchids only? And naked they were. Beyond the flowers.

What an attention grabber.

As you have to go to great lengths to grab some attention in marketing-hyped Bangkok.

I wonder what they come up with next.

A fruit show. Covering with longans.

Missed that pseudo-naked flower fashion show too. But Xpress was there for you.

The story though doesn’t tell us which journalist hit the jackpot.

Ah, and don’t miss that Hotbed of Flowers at the Nai Lert Park Hotel from August 22nd and 24th.

No wrong expectations though. It’s purely a flower show with no naked model anywhere.

A purely public and social affair to raise 38 million baht for the Kidney Foundation of Thailand.

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Comments

39 Responses to “How To Catch The Bangkok Journalist”

Matt on July 23rd, 2008 3.39 pm

We once had a bowling competition where I almost won a DVD player.
BangkokDan on July 23rd, 2008 3.50 pm

Point being how buyable/bribable/purchasable the local journalist is. As an unavoidable consequence of meager salaries?

BangkokDan
Dr A P Nikhil on July 23rd, 2008 10.20 pm

Hi … Thanks for the coverage … I am the guy who organized the event and PR aspects of it and guess what … we got a total of 532 media covering the event which has become the talk of the town! And the coverage that we had in the Thai media and also international media is phenomenal … including the wire agencies. Some other first that we did was we had specially designed press kits with a free pre-loaded thumbdrive of a 1 gigabyte capacity preloaded with pictures and information and also every media that came went away with a bottle of wine worth a 1,400 baht. So next time anybody wanna PR services … call me na.
BangkokDan on July 23rd, 2008 10.27 pm

Those are astonishing figures Dr. A P Nikhil. The wine bottles alone require a budget of over half a million.

BangkokDan
Dr A P Nikhil on July 23rd, 2008 11.43 pm

Hi – we spent a total of 1.9 million baht on the Press Con alone but my company raised a total of 17 million baht alone through corporate sponsorships for the setting-up of the garden and also the marketing aspects. The success of the Press Con is also attracting numerous other sponsors at the moment. I have a few more other crazy Press Cons coming up soon for a few other clients and as the you are on my mailing lists, you will be informed. Regards
Andrew on July 25th, 2008 7.56 am

You had 532 members of the media attended your event, or you achieved 532 news clippings? I suspect it’s the latter, and to be honest that’s pretty easy to do in these days of RSS feeds, free press release distribution services and the like. When we launched our magazine last year we had close to 1,000 mentions in all. I’m sure everyone would agree that is the quality and not the quantity of coverage the counts. I’d rather have one Reuters or AP story than 10 stories on non-descript and meaningless websites.

If you did physically have 532 members of the media attend your event then I congraultate you as I’m sure it would be a record number for Thailand.

On the subject of PR freebies (and incidentally we – the only global business magazine in Thai – did not get an invite to this event) my journalists are not allowed to accept these sorts of gifts. The Code of Standards they abide by prohibits it. You can see that at http://www.businessweek.co.th/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=67
Dr A P Nikhil on July 27th, 2008 9.24 am

Hi Khun Andrew, I am so glad that we had an email from you as yes, Businessweek is a highly esteemed magazine and we have always been trying to get hold of your editorial team for various of our client’s stories. Yes, as a PR practioner, we respect honest coverage and we too do not practice influencing any journalists from writing only from our perspective nor do we want to influence contents and editorial perspectives. Our Press Conferences only normally focus on stories that have coverage value … The World’s Largest Orchid Garden and with the constrains that the local Tourism industry is going through, it surely befits coverage. Our practice of giving gifts is only as a gesture of thank you to the journalists for coming to our events and most importantly, no project or business can be successful without the support of the media, and we always want to reciprocate that through our gifts and gestures. In no way is it to be construed as bribery, etc. … in this current times , if wines,thumbdrives and lucky draws with households are deemed as bribes … lol! I would consider cash gifts of 10,000 baht about to be really bribes and its time that many media organisations revise those rulings.

As for the event, we actually had a 612 persons physically attend the as from the guest form registrations but after identifying their sources and media that they represented,It was a total of 532 media that was represented of which 84 were foreign media. Yes we did have Reuters there but not AP. We did send your esteemed magazine an invitation and I will actually check in out as to which email and fax it was sent out to. Give me a week and I will be posting up the list of all the attendees and also pictures and a thank you note on my site. With regards to someones comments about my site, being a busy PR company, we focus on promoting our clients and rarely have the time nor resources to promote ourselves (except maybe on this blog … thanks for the opportunity) and as such my web is not really updated but if you were to sign in, u will have access to a lot of information. We also keep our clients lists confidential for a variety of reasons.

We have been receiving daily coverages in most of the Thai media and also from some of the foreign media in Singapore, Australia, but mostly from Japan, Korea and China. Also had a nice comment from a staff at the nation, that that particular issue of the free daily Xpress has been quickly snapped up and there were calls from its stockists that day demanding more stocks to be replenished. Anyway, we hope that an esteem magazine like yours will not consider stories like Thailand having the World’s Largest Orchid Garden to be trash and not support worthy projects for this country. Once again a sincere thanks to all the media that came and supported the event.
Andrew on July 28th, 2008 6.50 am

Dr. Nikhil. Thanks for responding to my comments here. You might also want to look at what I wrote on my personal blog too?

I still find your claims that 532 bone fide members of the media attended your event, and 84 were foreign, somewhat difficult to believe. Please do post a list of the outlets these people represented as I’m keen to see. I’m sure it would be excellent PR for your company too, showing how many members of the press you were able to attract.

As for BusinessWeek Thailand, we get many, many invitations to events that are simply not relevent to our target audience. Please do not take this personally Sir, but the fact that many PR companies feel their story is something we MUST be covering shows a lack of understanding about our product, our target reader and our style of journalism. Your event is certainly not trash and I wish you every success, however it’s simply not something that we would cover in our magazine.

I welcome any press releases or invitations you may wish to send about events you are working on. The email address (which is available on the contacts page of our website) is news@businessweek.co.th.
Beau on July 29th, 2008 5.53 pm

I went there and was quite disappointed because I wanted to see that world’s largest orchid garden but they said it hadn’t been built yet!!
Andrew on August 4th, 2008 5.20 pm

I’m still waiting for the promised list of 532 media (of which 84 were foreign media) that attended the press conference. Like I said it should be a great PR opportunity for the organizing company to show the level of interest it can generate.
BangkokDan on August 4th, 2008 5.25 pm

Maybe you remain overly optimistic Andrew.

BangkokDan
ohobangkok on August 5th, 2008 1.58 pm

You can see these sexy models pictures here

http://www.dailyxpress.net/specials/photogallery/showsection.php?id=32

from Dailyxpress
Andrew on August 5th, 2008 3.21 pm

Yeah, perhaps so, but if someone makes bold claims and promises they need to substantiate them. I live in hope.
Khun Wasana on August 7th, 2008 10.53 am

Lol! …

(…)

CENSORED – no inflammatory, insulting and threatening contributions tolerated.

BangkokDan
Khun Wasana on August 8th, 2008 9.59 am

BangkokDan … what pussies you are, must be Andrew’s Fuck Buddy! Anyway, read our comments about Andrew and Business Week and your site in Thai Rath … we Thai journalists know what to do too!
BangkokDan on August 8th, 2008 10.08 am

Khun Wasana – as offered to you by email we welcome your views in a contribution.

We welcome any well researched, well founded story – and absolutely will publish it.

But no derogatory language please.

For slander we offer no space, honoring the true Thai tradition of mutual esteem and respect, practiced by this site.

Yours -
BangkokDan
Andrew on August 8th, 2008 5.53 pm

I am not sure what was said but I’d happily discuss anything I have written in any post or comment. My email address is on my blog.

I am not sure what is meant by “We Thai journalists …”? All my journalists are Thai. I’m also not sure about the reference to Thai Rath. I’m sure that any publication is going to ensure everything it publishes is factual, balanced and correct.
Warapong on November 12th, 2008 4.29 pm

Hey did you guys see this Dr. Nikhil pull off another great event last October the 10th at The Launch Of The XXI Forever Store at 2nd Floor CentralWorld … was superb … I was there … About only 267 media this time but he had like about 10 of Thailand Top Actresses and also a couple of girl bands and using viral marketing, there are more than 200 Thai sites talking about the brand: XXI Forever and the store is doing so great that it’s wiping off the other competitors businesses as its hitting about 3.8 million baht in average daily sales! – according to a report in Poojakarn and Thansettakij. All I can say that being an Singaporean Indian guy, he is really creating some waves in the Thai PR industry.
Lek on November 19th, 2008 12.40 pm

This Dr. Nikhil guy while I admit that he is good at what does ie PR and marketing, in person is an arrogant SOB. He literally thinks that he controls the media here (although there has been some articles in various local papers that he has bought up numerous print media here using his nominees) and on top of it, I have heard that he has mood swings that fluctuate like hell and he evens fires his clients! Can you believe that! And worst, it’s said that in the market that he chooses what clients he wishes to work with and that he even rejects clients. What arrogance!
BangkokDan on November 19th, 2008 12.48 pm

Nice sarcasm Lek. I’d take such kind of arrogance as a compliment.

Who doesn’t want to choose one’s clients.

BangkokDan
Brian Santinadakul on November 19th, 2008 9.37 pm

Hey … be fair to this guy … I know him personally for about 12 years now. He is really good at his work and has been in Thailand for about 16 years now I think and I have seen him do a lot of wonders for his clients, yeap he is a bit of a perfectionists and also a bit difficult at times but if you really know him … he is the kind of guy who would even go all the way out for his enemies, to help them and I have even witnessed him do a lot a selfless work for the underprivileged but he does it quietly. Yeap I have seen all these articles about him in the gossip columns talking about his riches and his jewelry that he wears and about him dressed in half a billion baht of diamonds at certain functions and about his arrogance but he is really a self-made guy and can be very humble if you know him in person as he himself will tell you that he has gone through a lot in life and many ups and downs. There were articles recently in Post Today and Thansettakij commenting about him being instrumental in the takeover of many fashion labels and cosmetic brands and also hotels by various groups from Dubai that he represents and personally I am aware that he is currently handling more than 23 fashion brands and despite being a conflict of interests with each other, the principals do not mind – plus he maintains professionalism and never discusses projects with each other and always adopts a different approach for each brand with success. He is also involved with H&M, Body Shop and certain mega events next year like the Gathering of Asia’s Top 500 richest people in March with the top 50 from 10 Asian Countries, the first ever Asian AIDs Fundraiser in May 09 with Pet Shop Boys, Sir Elton John and Diana Ross in Bangkok and a host of other stuff. Common, support him instead of criticizing him. For your info … I was one of his clients whom he helped and even when my food business was down and I could not afford his fees, he volunteered to help me and built me up to where I am today and these days I can pay him his exorbitant fees as a result of his marketing skills.
Sid on November 20th, 2008 3.13 pm

Bang on target, Brain … I know Nikhil for last 4 years and had the opportunity to closely monitor how he works … must say he is truly a perfectionist and very professional in his work … he is like a phoenix … every time his foes try to destroy him, he bounces back with new vigor and enthusiasm … With his experience and marketing skills he can turn any venture or project into a profit making unit … time and again he has proven it … He’s an alchemist in true sense … Instead of finding faults and criticizing, let this guy work in peace …
DrNikhilisaFraud on December 20th, 2008 2.13 pm

Dr. Nikhil is a dodgy dodgy fraudster, NOTHING he says stacks up and his claims are erroneous to the extreme.

Try to get any real information about his businesses and you get nowhere, none of any merit has heard of this fraudster either.

The postings above are clearly associates of his trying to back up this low life.

Don’t deal with him!
ThaiHiso on December 22nd, 2008 8.45 pm

Lol! The person who wrote the above postings … are you a rival PR firm or some poor sod/lass who could not get a job with him or gain anything from him or even maybe got a yelling from him. I am not close to him neither am I defending him … but how could a fraudster be having so much coverage about himself if he is featured in eight magazines at the moment (December issues like Esquire, 2 Mag, etc.) and also why is he involved with so many companies and why is be always seen in the company of very high profile. This happened at an event last week at Bed Supperclub, the Anniversary of Luxury Magazine, where the owner of the Magazine was singing praises about Dr. Nikhil publicly. Check out his websites http://www.prexpress.net and also http://www.pastry-club.net, where Thailand’s new prime minister is seen with him.
BangkokDan on December 22nd, 2008 9.11 pm

I agree that there’s tons of fishy praise in the comments, mostly originating in a similar IP address, and I’m about to close this thread.

BangkokDan
Pete, frogblogger on June 20th, 2009 7.10 pm

Don’t know if you actually did close this thread Dan, but I’ve been getting potentially libellous comments on my blog about ThaiVisa recently from a Dr. Nikhil “in PR,” targeting an individual; not what I would expect from a reasonable person I have to say, irrespective of the truth or otherwise of his claims.
BangkokDan on June 20th, 2009 9.49 pm

Yeah Pete, thread not closed, but nearly … a certain person was posting praising comments under different names (as said, mostly originating from the same IP root address …).

A fellow blogger got threatened … I’m not saying, just saying, better ignore big egos, it’s not worth the potential hassles.

BangkokDan
Pete, frogblogger on June 20th, 2009 10.06 pm

Got it, he “ominously” concludes his posts, having accused me of being in cahoots with TV, with “we have met before …” (obviously we haven’t).

Felt like asking him if it was in Foxy Lady, or the Spotlight Bar …
Luca on September 22nd, 2009 8.48 pm

Hmm! I came across this article just today. My name is Khun Tamara and I am the Sales Manager for G Four Wines Thailand. Dr. Nikhil recently organised the PR part our Wine Preview Function at the Grand Hyatt and he did an amazing job of getting more than 163 media to turn up for our event and the post-PR for the event was excellent plus it helped us in our tactical sales. So tell me, why are so many things written here that are negative about him. I know that he can be a bit difficult to work with and always wants his way but at the end of the day, it’s the end results that count and he always delivers as far as I am concerned. I know that people in the hotel industry like the Dusit Group and even Le Cordon Bleu and also numerous retail groups will tests to his good works. I do not work for him nor would I consider myself his friend but having been a client … I can say he is good. It’s not good posting negative things about people on the net when you do not know that person. If anyone needs to know about his works, call me.
I wonder ... on September 22nd, 2009 9.10 pm

Savy Bitch anyone?

Fully agree Luca that’s cheap slander but Dan made clear that such comments merit no mention here.

Another thing. Heard of the project

http://savybitch.com/

?

According to http://whois.org/whois/savybitch.com the site is registered by a Rachan Kalra.

Same person is registered for Dr. Nikhil’s site http://prexpress.net:

http://whois.org/whois/prexpress.net

Anyone knows if there’s any connection?
BangkokDan on September 22nd, 2009 10.11 pm

Interesting hint I wonder …. Mentioned person seems to own quite some domains:

Rachan Kalra (savybitch.com entry).

Rachan Kalra (prexpress.net entry).

Maybe a webmaster or so.

For your convenience I uploaded two screenshots of the relevant Whois information.

prexpress.net

&

savybitch.com

Looks like a cool site that Savy Bitch!

I wonder though what controversies?

BangkokDan
Dr BS Nikhil on September 27th, 2009 7.26 pm

Hi Dan,

Stumbled upon this thread on a boring Sunday. I’ve worked with this individual before.

One advice before anyone decided to jump in the pool with him. Dig deeper. Ask for client references and talk to his past clients. He’ll tell you that he’s personally handling over 400 accounts – so ask him to set an appointment with ten of his clients so you can talk to them.

You’ll find that he might bulk like what he did when Andrew asked for the list of “532 media (of which 84 were foreign media).”
Spin City on October 1st, 2009 11.02 pm

Interestingly, when starting out as a newbee hack in Thailand I had the pleasure of the good doctor’s call.

“You handle 500 plus accounts…well that is … amazing. Look forward to hearing about some of them.”

As I suspect, he never did call me again with more details. All of which left me wondering, why bother in the first place?
Peter Tan on October 3rd, 2009 8.32 pm

Hi, my name is Peter Tan from Neuron Marketing Singapore (I prefer to state who I am instead of being like some cowards who have lots to say by being anonymous!). I know Dr. Nikhil for a very long time and have from time to time helped him with numerous ad-hoc works for his Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia operations and I am replying to some of the comments here about him especially the two above: BS and Spin City … All I can assume is that both of you must be some of the losers who have crossed the path of Dr. Nikhil before (or Jai as we call him).

Jai has had many people who either wanted to work for him or tried to sell things to him or even tried to get inputs from him and could not succeed. There are a couple of so called farang PR practioners here (not in the league of being classified as competitors at all!), also writers and TV show producers that he could not be bothered with and who do not like him. About having to list all his clients and also all the media who attended the press conference here, I think he would be very stupid to do so. Unlike some people here who claim to know the media industry here … is anyone for instance aware that in Thailand alone you have more than 600 odd media catering to just the entertainment industry! Including blogs, websites, newsletters, besides magazines and newspapers, TV shows and segments! I was at that Flower Show press conference and I did see more than 500 media attendees! (As far as foreign media is concerned, there are lots of foreign media who do not want to have anything to do with the FCCT, but are still here in Bangkok.) I did speak to Jai on the phone today about this site and he told me to ignore it as he said that its normal for people in a high profile to have their critics and he was thankful that at least he had critics … lol! I am not defending him, but I am aware that he actually has not 500 or 600 but more than 700 odd clients with him in Thailand alone now and his website might only lists about 200 odd but he does not want to list all as he is doing a lot of parallel accounts. Anybody who goes through all the Thai dailies each day will see his face and company being mentioned about an event or article almosts every other day these days! Would Khun Dan publish on the site everything about BusinessWeek i.e. all your clients who advertise and the negotiated rates and also the list of all your subcribers and your real sale figures at the store, etc.? I guess not … He is doing the site Savy Bitch and his not hiding it and is also doing a TV program around it and also a newspaper and also owns quite a number of Thai media through his nominees or various subsidiary companies. At the moment though he does not reveal it. He also has a huge printing and packaging factory at Navanakorn Estate that a lot of companies are using and besides these I am aware that he is into diamond trading, the property market and has just launched the F&B outlet Wine Express and also is launching a new skincare line called Skin Express. Why am I replying to the comments here and defending Jai to a certain degree … I noticed that there seems to be a high amount of farang viewers on this site and they seem to always love to attack any prominent Thais or other Asians. You know what my comment is to them …!
BangkokDan on October 3rd, 2009 11.55 pm

With due respect Peter Tan:

I noticed that there seems to be a high amount of farang viewers on this site and they seem to always love to attack any prominent Thai or other Asian.

This site rather rights the right and wrongs the wrong.

What is wrong is wrong, doesn’t have anything to do with being prominent or Asian.

This site’s readers love Thailand, mainly, but don’t just keep quiet about her abusers.

BangkokDan
Khun Sone on October 12th, 2009 10.59 pm

Hope that everyone saw the royal news at 8 pm yesterday (Sunday October 11th) and also this morning’s Thai Rath. For those of who were there, Dr. Nikhil hosted a very exclusive dinner at D’Sens on Saturday for a selected group of top 70 hisos in Thailand and the dinner was specially presided by HRH Princess Srirasm, Royal Consort of HRH the Crowne Prince. The dinner included a special fashion show by 40 models including 15 top actors and actresses and also 25 hiso guest models. The British Ambassador and his wife was also there along with a few other foreign dignitaries. The fashion show featured the new collections of Nishita Shah’s brand Nsha and also some stunning jewelry pieces never showcased in Thailand before by Diamrusa. Dr. Nikhil also incorporated products from HRH Princess 904 Collections and used another 12 adorable toddlers from various nationalities to showcase the products. Prior to the event, about 230 media turned up to get a preview and shoot the models in the Champagne Bar below. It was such a resounding success that its being talked about in town. The cuisine for the night was prepared by the Dusit’s chefs plus three guests chefs flown in from Paris and Japan. Four days before that he handled the media coverages for the Italian Trade Commission’s Italian Food Fair at Centralworld which was presided over by HRH Princess Soamsawalli. He is handling the Krizia Mandellini exclusive show in Hong Kong next week and also The Graff Asia Show in Bangkok in December which will see 14 foreign royalties in attendance and also their Majesties the King and Queen.
BangkokDan on October 13th, 2009 8.07 am

Unfortunately I have to close this thread.

Dr. Nikhil is certainly an outstanding PR promoter.

The writing styles, editing requirements and I.P. addresses of the last larger comments though made it again clear that they were written by the one same person.

aB.com is all about integrity and transparency.

I have to therefore close the thread. Sadly that’s a first here, but that shadowy writer leaves me no choice. No further comments to be published.

BangkokDan
Dr BS Nikhil on February 8th, 2010 6.05 pm

Just to let you know that this person is already being sued by his Dubai investors and he is on the run in KL. So BS doesn’t take you anywhere when you can’t walk the walk.

(BD: Any hard facts?)
Dr BS Nikhil on February 13th, 2010 7.03 pm

One of my colleagues who does his IT work told me that Dr. Nikhil called him and told him that he is being sued by one of Dubai investors. Dr. Nikhil still owes my colleague 50k for his IT services. Check out Dr. Nikhil’s website and you’ll find that it has been suspended due to unpaid services – http://www.prexpress.net. Dr. Nikhil can no longer be reached at his cell phone.

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