I will never get a policy with AIA for this reason:

Last night me and m. were watching one of his favourite current lakorns (Thai soap operas - more on those later).  During the commercial break, an advert came on. Well not an advert, more of a public information broadcast type thing. It featured little children singing "Que Sera" in English. Now that was pretty cute in itself...."que Sewaa sewaa...etc etc". Then you realise that all of the children have some kind of physical or mental handicap...in wheelchairs, blind, that kind of thing....and for some reason that started to really get to me, I was proper choking up and M looked a little moist eyed himself.

 You know, these little disabled kids singing about how they don't know what the future will be, and they are probably really sick, and they might die and....gawd it was going for the jugular. THEN the camera sweeps over the audience, to who you assume the parents of these kids...who first of all are mouthing the words of the song to help them along, and then they are all looking choked up and moist eyed. And lo...the tears start. But hang on, it's not just the parents crying, the camera pans some more, and the crew are all crying too! The cameraman, the producer! Bearing in mind we are in Thailand, where emotions are to be felt and not shown. By this point actually wet tears are running down my cheeks. And I am opening my wallet, I will give these children anything they need, they've got me, damn their good. Last pan, the camera goes over a pregnant woman in the audience rubbing her belly "the futuw's not ows to seeeee....". Pan ends. Graphics screen....Thai voice "if you want to feel more secure about the future, choose AIA insurance".

I was fuming. A goddam insurance company made me cry! Bastards. So yeah I was annoyed first, but then I thought a little more about actually how sick that advert was. Here are my reasons:

1) Exploiting disabled children for monetary gain (yeah sure the kids would have made money, but nothing compared to what AIA will make - they are Thailand's biggest insurers)
2) Exploiting peoples emotions for monetary gain (ie making me look like an ass)
3) (sickest of all) what they seemed to be suggesting in the closing shot was, get insurance, otherwise you might end up with one of these unfortunate sods and then you'd be screwed wouldn't you...all the while these little kids are singing their hearts out with no idea of what they have put their faces too.

God it made me mad. It was like watching an oxfam relief advert and finding out was for Evian. Like "drink water otherwise you will end up like these people".  I wonder if it actually worked, if it made any people want to get an AIA policy? Cos it made me want to do anything but get an AIA policy. But hey, maybe it's a cultural thing and I am just not getting it.