Page 31 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL7

The problem was already looming 10 years ago when Japanese car companies were to move their manufacturing plants to Thailand to produce pickup trucks. We didn’t have enough skilled workers and the labour we have now mainly comes from Myanmar and Cambodiahave enough labour to drive this industry, no matter where they are from, it’s nothing to worry about.One of your magazines, Formula, has been around since 1976. What contributed to its long success?First, we have to be different from other automobile magazines in Thailand. Five years ago we joined hands with Vata Lute, a car magazine from Italy, to make a magazine here. I decided from then on to focus on the content. You can see that our magazine cover is different from the other 30 or 40 magazines on the market because we don’t use advertisement pictures from car companies. We have more ads, more readers and our sales are better than ever.How are you adapting to the digital era?WesawhowtheUSandtheUKdid it seven, eight years ago, and we started to adapt ourselves because we knew that sooner or later the same phenomenon would happen in Thailand. We have a team that deals with the digital format for two of our most popular magazines – Formula and 4Wheels – and readers can find our magazines in digital format through many e-book stores.Do you plan to launch some of the magazines across ASEAN?The biggest problem is language. Malaysia and Singapore are far better because they use English all the time and most magazines are bilingual. Sometimes we sell the content to for- eign publishers and we have to trans- late the articles, and I don’t think it’s really worth it. But if someone wants to buy a franchise and translate it into their local language or in English, I wouldn’t say no.Elite+ 29