Thai pop song causes anger in marketing industry

At the beginning of the song, the young salesman is enthused by his job

A Thai pop star has agreed to change his latest song after people working in the marketing industry said it cast them in a bad light.

"Lost friends because of direct sales" by hip-hop artist Natee "Oui" Eakwichit, tells the story of a man who takes a job as a network marketer and finds himself losing all his friends as a result of his incessant sales pitches to join his multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme, TNN24 news website reports. "I called them but they didn't answer. I met them but they didn't wanna talk," the would-be salesman laments. Released a week ago, the catchy tune with its refrain of "Rich, rich, rich!" has already been viewed nearly one million times on YouTube.

However, the lyrics have attracted the attention of Kritanong Suwannawong, leader of the People Network Power Party who says that the song "misunderstands" network marketing and portrays people in the profession as unscrupulous MLM peddlers pushing illegal pyramid schemes, the Bangkok Post reports. While acknowledging that such people exist, she tells the paper "Every profession has the good and the bad," but the lyrics portray everybody in that line of work as "bad and unwanted persons".

It is a criticism taken up by others working in the industry, who took to social media to call for the song to be banned, or for Oui write another song showing the positive side to the profession.

In the end, a happy compromise has been reached with a subtle change to the song's title, which is now "Lost friends due to indirect sales". Oui is also allowing marketing companies to use the song for free, saying it might cheer up their staff, the Bangkok Post reported.

By the song's end, he's not so keen on his choice of profession

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