With a grounding in Journalism and TV and having had extensive work-experience in Public Relations with one of the biggest PR companies in the world, Chanut (Tum) Nawnarong believes that: "Phuket has so much to offer, but is still in its infancy as far as PR goes."

How do you measure success? In the absence of a decent equation to sink your teeth into, you have to rely upon the value attributed to someone's or something's impact on the world.

This impact can be good or bad which then decides whether people or companies become famous or infamous. Whatever the nature of the impact, you can guarantee that lurking furtively in the background is some form of PR. Chanut (Tum) Nawnarong is the Managing Director of a new company called Infinity which began operations on Phuket about eight months ago.

She believes Phuket has a lot to offer PR companies like hers, that there is room to grow here; that development companies and leisure facilities of Phuket need good PR; and that there aren't that many companies experienced enough to handle large corporate clients here. She reckons this will change in the near future, as people realize the market and opportunities, and more specialists move in.

An alumni of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Tum started her professional career in Journalism and TV production. She then switched to Public Relations and Sales. Eventually, she found herself working for Weber Shandwick who are one of the major PR players in the world. Good grounding for a hard-working girl like Tum. Here she gained invaluable experience handling powerful clients such as large airline companies and household names in the electronics sector.

"Most big industries have in-house PR," Tum explains. "But sometimes they need to employ external companies who may have better knowledge of certain areas or topics, especially if the company wants to work closely with a local - or even not so local - community."

Since Thomas Jefferson first coined the phrase "public relations" during his address to Congress in 1807 it has gone from what Governments should aim for to becoming one of the most important departments in any business.

Defined as being "a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organisation's ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organisation are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values", Public Relations covers every aspect of a company's day to day functions.


For example product recall is another sensitive area for companies. A mishandled press release or careless word can literally spell the end for any product. Look at the effect that then Junior Food Minister Edwina Curry had on the sale of eggs in the UK when she let slip that most of the laying flocks in England were transmitting Salmonella to their eggs. Jane Grigson, a very active and respected food writer at that time, announced that she would not recommend the use of eggs in her columns until salmonella had been removed from our laying flocks. Sadly, she did not live to see this happen. Not only did the sale of eggs slump but products using eggs found it hard to achieve previous sales figures because of lack of supplies. The recovery from this took a long, long time. With good PR perhaps this could have been avoided.


On the other hand, when nearly 40 people fell ill from suspected E. coli exposure from eating at Pat & Oscar's restaurants in 2003, the restaurant chain's owners did a lot more than just apologise. They quickly severed any ties with the supplier of the allegedly tainted lettuce. They set up a free phone number for customers who feared poisoning and, over the course of a weekend, gave out more than half a million dollars worth of free food to lure hesitant customers back.

The owners of Pat & Oscar's didn't come up with those ideas on their own. They turned to one of a growing number of crisis-management specialists who immediately reversed public opinion and put them back on track.

So Public Relations can make or break a company, event or person. Most Hollywood stars of any note have companies looking after their perceived persona as they can not be relied upon to do it themselves - effectively.

Chanut traveled down from Bangkok to Phuket, had a look around and realised that there was enough of a market here for Infinity, and now runs the company with two full-time and a few part-time staff.

She offers a bespoke service to her clients, and the extensive experience that she has gathered over the years means that she can do any job extremely effectively. This has quickly been noticed by some of the larger development agencies here and, as we speak, a large international leisure chain is in talks with Infinity to promote their brand here on Phuket.

Feedback from the press has also been good. "I do not advertise at the moment as word of mouth seems to be working quite efficiently," says Tum.

One thing you immediately realise about Chanut is that she is an affable, yet astute young woman who is willing to work very hard for what she believes in. "More than anything I want Infinity to have a good reputation," she told me. "Eventually I would like to have an office in Bangkok too, but that's in the future." She has obviously worked extremely hard to get where she is now and I suspect that this will continue

I believe her, when she tells me that she can organise and arrange anything to do with Strategic Planning, Corporate Communications, Editorial Services, Marketing Communications and Media Relations in almost any field you can name from Aviation to Household Goods.

She has previously worked with OrBorTors handling their media relations. We all know what a tricky job that can be!

She was once asked to "monitor the news" for a large company and had to present a synopsis of the weekly news for a period of time.

She told me that working with people is: "a never ending source of amusement". This includes trying to convince an overseas client that Thailand wasn't a backward Third World country.

"Sometimes you get might get asked to maintain or raise the profile of some fairly influential people, like, perhaps, the chairman of a major global organisation. It's your job to make sure that the advice you give them about dress and demeanor is correct. In this day and age it is quite acceptable for respected businessmen to dress more casually. For example, a polo shirt with the company logo on is probably more appropriate now than a three piece suit. Depending on the occasion of course!"

I asked Chanut about what she does in her spare time but it appears that she doesn't have much time to do anything other than perhaps go to the beach once a week.

"I used to enjoy Yoga and Pilates" she told me. "But these days I spend most of my time going where I need to go for the sake of the business."

Chanut knows where she wants to go and is fully aware that there is going to be more and more competition in Phuket, as time goes on. This does not seem to deter her and she talks about her company and its development with confidence.

I am not supposed to tell you, the general public that is, but she is looking to recruit a couple of Thai nationals who speak and write good English and are prepared to work hard in order to take Infinity all over Phuket- and beyond.