Boonsithi Chokwatana is the Chairman of Saha Group, Thailand's leading consumer products conglomerate. This is part 14 of a 30-part series.

Advertising has played a major role in the growth of Saha Group. In 1964, when we were desperately trying to grow the sales of toothpaste and powdered shampoo through our partnership with Japanese consumer products maker Lion, my father had the idea to establish Far East Advertising, Thailand's first advertising agency.

My father realized the importance of advertising early on. It is commonplace now, but Chinese society in Thailand was different in the 1950s when my father was starting to grow his company. Business was all about trust and connections. Many viewed advertising as a waste that sacrificed profit margins.

My father was seen as a heretic by his business associates, but he did not mind. The process went like this: Saha would first place ads in newspapers for the products it imported and sold. Whenever someone from the manufacturer would come to Thailand from Japan or elsewhere, we would invite a newspaper reporter to meet them at the airport, and to dinner in the evening. The next day we would hold a briefing for the media. We figured that if the reporters wrote even a one-line article about the company or its products, we would come out ahead.

Far East was launched at the time when we were making attempt to enter manufacturing. We wanted to improve our advertising operation, but there was no one we could trust. That being the case, we thought should create our own company and take on work from other businesses as well.

Pipat, who was in charge of the instant noodle business, his brother Boonchai, who came up with the brand name Mama for the noodles, and Paiboon Damrongchaitham, who later split off from Saha and founded GMM Grammy Public Company, the largest music and entertainment company in Thailand, were among the pioneers of the new business.

To sell more toothpaste, our company set up a nationwide lottery, employing Apasra Hongsakula, the first Thai to win the Miss Universe pageant, in 1965, in our advertisements. It was a revolutionary approach for the time.

My father thought Far East should use Bao Zheng, a great leader and jurist from the 11th century Northern Song Dynasty in China, for the branding of our powdered detergent.

After entering the instant noodle market in 1972 through our partnership with President Enterprise, my father visited Taiwan with Pipat and Paiboon. While there, he happened to see a popular TV series called "Justice Bao," which was another name for Bao Zheng. My father was deeply impressed by the stories of the great judge, who was pure and upright and did not hesitate to render judgments upon even the powerful.

He wanted Thais to see the show as well, so he imported the series and began airing it on Thailand's first commercial TV station, Channel 3, in 1974. The series was a smash hit. The streets would empty as people rushed home to watch the show, known in Thailand as "Bao Boon Jin," every Wednesday night at 7:00.

My father wanted to take advantage of the show's popularity for his business. He proposed developing a new powdered detergent as our next mainstay product after Lion's Top, and name it Bao Boon Jin. Some objected to the rather long name, but the plan went ahead. Not only did we come up with a somewhat eccentric name, but with Lion's help we also improved the product's foam and bleaching.

The new product, which came in a striking red box with an illustration of the series' protagonist, made its debut in 1976 with the catchphrase, "Honest quality and a fair price."

As Far East invested heavily in the ad campaign, the phrase "honest and fair" caught on and Bao Boon Jin became a product that competed well with Colgate's Fab and Unilever's Breeze.

The product's name was later shortened to Bao, but it is still popular among Thai consumers as Saha's signature product.

This column is part of The Nikkei's "My Personal History" ("Watashi no Rirekisho") series of autobiographies. The series first appeared in The Nikkei in 1956. Since then, a wide variety of world-changing individuals have written or dictated their life stories for publication.