Pribek

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is embracing the the idea of branding and aggressively marketing itself.

For starters, they have a jingle. From Breitbart/AFP…

Now the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has its own anthem: the not quite so rousing “The ASEAN Way” written by two Thai composers.

Given its official premiere at the regional bloc’s annual summit in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin at the weekend, the hymn reaches its climax with the lyrics, “We dare to dream, we care to share. Together for ASEAN.”

OK, “anthem”-”jingle”, it’s all splitting hairs. Whatever you call it, it’s a song used to promote something. Here is the “ASEAN Anthem”

As always, dare to dream then, click pause on the music player located in the side bar to your left before playing the YouTube.

Well, I guess it is really more of an anthem. A jingle would usually be more catchy. But, as far as anthems go..not bad.

But, ASEAN knows that just having the song isn’t enough. In this day and age you need to have a marketing strategy that encompasses multiple fronts. Traditionally, an outfit like this would back up the jingle with some type of comprehensive literary foray. Ahh but, these kids these days aren’t interested in comprehensive literary forays. What to do, what to do?

ASEAN has also recently unveiled a cartoon book in Thai called “ASEAN Discovery,”…

…Narrated by an alien named Blue, who actually appears to be purple, the cartoon is designed to explain economic cooperation under the ASEAN Free Trade Area to young readers.

The plot line of the book reportedly shows how cheap it is for Blue to buy spare parts for his space ship after crashing in the free trade zone.

There you have it kids, how to market a movement the ASEAN way.

Carry on now and all hail the free trade zone.