Thailand’s Nation Branding : A study of Thai nation-brand equity and capabilities

Abstract: Problem: Which of Thailand’s four main sectors that nation brands compete including tourism, FDI, export promotion, and talent attraction that should be develop a main focus in developing a stronger Nation Brand for the country comparing to other four countries in South East Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines? Purpose: The purpose of this paper are 1) to study and analyze the current status of Thailand’s nation brand equity and 2) to examine the feasibility in each of Thailand’s four main sectors that nation brands compete including tourism, FDI, export promotion, and talent attraction by comparing to other four countries in ASEAN including Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia in order to generate recommendations for the country in developing a stronger nation branding strategy in the future. Method: In order to achieve our purpose, firstly, we chose ‘Asset-based Nation brand equity’ model to collect the information and perform analysis on the contribution of both nation internal and external assets towards nation brand equity. Secondly, ‘Nation brand internal analysis’ model was chosen in order to be a guideline for gathering data and performing analysis on Thailand’s nation brand capability in each of the 4 main sectors comparing to the other four countries. In addition, due to our research topic and limited time frame, we would rely on secondary sources as our main source of information with some guidance from our primary source. After the analysis had been performed, we had reached the conclusion and generated recommendation for our target group Conclusion: For the analysis of Nation brand equity, Thailand has equipped relatively strong internal assets both innate and nurtured as the country is rich with beautiful landscape and fascinating culture together with a strong support for the art from both governmental and private sectors. However, as for external assets, both disseminated and vicarious assets of Thailand still weakly contribute to the strength of the nation equity. Due to these reasons, we have recommended Thai governmental units to set up the organizations to improve the quality of disseminated asset and also start cooperation with private sector in order to come up with external portrayal in popular culture that can effective represent and enhance the country’s image. As for the result of ‘Nation brand internal analysis’, Thailand has shown moderate to high capability in the Export Promotion sector which was the highest among the other 3 sectors. However, based on the data in the analysis part, there are still lots of things needed to be done both by Thai governmental units and private sector in order to boost the country’s nation brand capability to achieve competitive advantage in the international market in the long run. According to this point, we had listed some recommendations for the governmental units to use as a general guideline in obtaining a strong nation brand that could help the country become more competitive in the global market.