Au Bon Pain has launched an offer that appeals to customers’ environmental consciousness as well as their money consciousness. When you order any size of take-away coffee cup without the plastic lid, you get a discount voucher of 10 baht (30 cents) toward your next purchase of a cold beverage. It seems to be a hit, with many people choosing to go lid-free.
Rewarding customers for taking small, easy steps to help the environment is a smart move for any brand, especially in light of recent JWT research that shows the recession has not eroded consumers’ environmental concerns.
Wearing a hygienic mask used to seem a bit weird in Thailand. Now, with the advent of the H1N1 flu, wearing a mask has become normal practice. Local brands are starting to fill this new niche: Beyond wearing the traditional hygienic masks produced by pharmaceutical companies, Thai people can now buy masks with attractive, even fun designs at an affordable price (about 10–20 baht, or 30–60 cents, vs. about 5 baht for a regular mask).
Normally, Thai women spend around 4,000-6,000 Baht (about $120-$180) when buying a set of skin care or cosmetics from premium counter brands. Now, many of these brands—including Shiseido, Clinique, Est
With “the java wars intensifying” in the U.S., as The Boston Globe puts it, a Starbucks-McDonald’s rivalry is also heating up around the globe. In Thailand, 
Achieving faster turnover is a consistent challenge for popular restaurants—how to get the most diners fed without customers feeling they’re being rushed out. Shabu Shi, one of the popular buffet-style shabu restaurants in Thailand, has turned recessionary thinking into a positive, coming up with a genuine win-win solution: This month, customers who finish eating within 50 minutes, instead of the usual 80 allotted, get a 15 percent discount.
Starbucks here launched a hot-hit promotion for coffee lovers in March, and the limited-time offer has now returned: After 1 p.m., bring in the receipt from your morning purchase to get 50 percent off a beverage purchase. As an added bonus, you can buy up to five cups at the discount price.
In an effort to keep up people’s spirits, the Thai media have been diligent about publishing stories aimed at inspiring us in the face of the current economic crisis. A recent example that has especially hit home is an 
Short-term promotions are rampant among restaurants these days, given the poor economy and even poorer customers. To stand out, 
To help stimulate spending and help people suffering the ill effects of the recession, the Thai government is paying citizens to shop. Well, sort of. It’s distributing 2,000 baht checks (about $56) to people with a monthly income below 15,000 baht ($424) from March 26-April 8.
Spurred by limited budgets, a revival of interest in tradition and a new affinity for natural products, more women here are using everyday supermarket items to make homemade beauty products. They are using traditional formulations for nourishing hair, skin, nails, etc.—passed down through the generations—or coming up with their own and sharing them among friends. The modern twist? 
