Political marketing Final -...

School of Business MIMA – International Marketing Course: Master Thesis International Marketing (EF0705) Mälardalens Högskola

Master Thesis

Political Marketing: Brand Personality for

Generation Y Thai Voters Group 1996: - Prapanrat Prommeenate ( 830202 ) - Ruechuphan Chookruvong ( 811004 ) Supervisor: Tobias Eltebrandt

Abstract Date: May 28th, 2008 Course: Master thesis, EFO705 Authors: Prapanrat Prommeenate 830202 Ruechupan Chookruvong 811004 Tutor: Tobias Eltebrandt Title: Political Marketing: Brand Personality for Generation Y Thai voters. Problem: What are the important characteristics in brand personality of political parties and leaders for Generation Y Thai voters? And how the parties should communicate them with the Generation Y Thai voters? Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to investigate and analyze the brand personality of the ideal political party and the ideal political leader for Generation Y Thai voters and compare with two biggest parties from the 2007 election. Furthermore, the paper will recommend how to communicate those characteristics of the brand personality to Generation Y Thai voters in five regions. Method: Preliminary interviews are conducted to have a rough picture of Generation Y Thai voters’ opinion from five regions. Then, the information helps formulate the questionnaire. The questionnaires are distributed to investigate the ideal brand personality as well as the brand personality of two exist biggest parties in Thailand. Conceptual Framework: Brand personality concept is being used as the main framework. In addition, the integrated marketing communication is used to explain how the brand personality should be distributed. Conclusion: The thesis offers the important traits and characteristics of the parties and leaders for the Generation Y Thai voters. Additionally how the parties should communicate the brand personality is recommended.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Political Marketing ......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Thai Political Background ................................................................................... 1

1.2.1 The beginning of Democracy ........................................................................ 1 1.2.2 Thai Political Election............................................................................ 1 1.2.3 Thai Election 2007 ........................................................................................ 2

1.3 Generation Y ........................................................................................................ 3 1.4 Brand personality ................................................................................................. 3 1.5 Brand personality in politics ................................................................................ 3 1.6 Problem statement ................................................................................................ 4 1.7 Purpose ................................................................................................................. 4 1.8 Target Audience ................................................................................................... 4

2. Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................ 5 2.1 Brand Personality ................................................................................................. 5 2.2 Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) ................................................ 7

3. Methodology....................................................................................................................... 10 3.1 The choice of topic ............................................................................................. 10 3.2 The chosen theories............................................................................................ 10

3.2.1 Brand Personality concept .......................................................................... 11 3.2.2 Integrated Marketing Communication concept .......................................... 11

3.3 The choice of collecting information ................................................................. 11 3.3.1 Secondary Data ........................................................................................... 11 3.3.2 Primary Data ............................................................................................... 11

3.4 Analysis of Information ..................................................................................... 20 3.5 Limitation ........................................................................................................... 20

4. Finding ............................................................................................................................... 22 4.1 Secondary Data .................................................................................................. 22

4.1.1 Generation Y voters .................................................................................... 22 4.1.2 Power People Party ..................................................................................... 22 4.1.3 Thai Democrat Party ................................................................................... 22 4.1.4 The 2007 Election ....................................................................................... 23 4.1.5 Result from 2007 election ........................................................................... 23 4.1.6 Communication ........................................................................................... 24

4.2 Primary Data ...................................................................................................... 28

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4.2.1 Brand personality of the Parties .................................................................. 29 4.2.1.1 Power People Party .............................................................................. 29 4.2.1.2 Thai Democrat Party ............................................................................ 32 4.2.1.3 Ideal Political Party .............................................................................. 34

4.2.2 Brand personality of the Leaders ................................................................ 36 4.2.2.1 Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party ........................................... 37 4.2.2.2 Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party .......................................... 39 4.2.2.3 Ideal Thai political leader .................................................................... 42

4.2.3 Other information about election ................................................................ 44 4.2.4 The communication process ....................................................................... 44

5. Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 47 5.1 Brand Personality ............................................................................................... 47

5.1.1 The Parties .................................................................................................. 47 5.1.2 The Ideal Party ............................................................................................ 52

5.2 Communication .................................................................................................. 53 5.2.1 Promotional tools and messages ................................................................. 53 5.2.2 Structure and Branding ............................................................................... 55

6. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 56 6.1 Brand Personality ............................................................................................... 56 6.2 Communication .................................................................................................. 56

7. Recommendation ............................................................................................................... 58 8. References ......................................................................................................................... 60 Appendix I: Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 62 Appendix II: Brand personality of the Parties ......................................................................... 67

Power People Party .................................................................................................. 67 Thai Democrat Party ................................................................................................ 72 Ideal Political Party .................................................................................................. 77

Appendix III: Brand personality of the Leader ........................................................................ 82 Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party ............................................................... 82 Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party .............................................................. 87 Ideal Thai Political Leader ....................................................................................... 92

Appendix IV: The communication channels ........................................................................... 97

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Five dimensions of brand personality (Aaker)………… 6

Figure 2: Five dimensions of brand personality (Aaker) after adaptation 6

Figure 3: Elements for integration 7

Figure 4: Question and purpose from preliminary interview 12

Figure 5a: The geographic and number of Thai population 15

5b: Percentage of Thai population divided by regions 16

Figure 6a: The generation of population 17

6b: The number of population of Generation Y who can vote 17

6c: Percentage of population, which combine age under 18 years old 18

Figure 7a: Number of population age between 18 – 31 years old 18

7b: Percentage of population, which age between 18 – 31 years old 19

Figure 8: Members of Parliament from 2007 election from each region 24

Figure 9a: PPP’s Billboard 25

9b: PPP’s Speech 26

Figure 10: Actual received questionnaire 28

Figure 11a – 15b are in Appendix II Brand Personality of the parties

Figure 16a: PPP’s traits of brand personality in Thailand 31

16b: PPP’s characteristics of brand personality in Thailand 31

Figure 17a – 21b are in Appendix II Brand Personality of the parties

Figure 22a: TDP’s traits of brand personality in Thailand 33

22b: TDP’s characteristics of brand personality in Thailand 34

Figure 28a: Ideal political party traits 36

28b: Characteristics of ideal political part 36

Figure 29a – 33b are in Appendix III Brand Personality of the leaders

Figure 34a: Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party traits 38

34b: Characteristics of Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party 39


Figure 40a: Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party traits 41

40b: Characteristics of Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party 41


Figure 46a: The ideal political leader traits 43

46b: Characteristics of the ideal political leader 44

Figure 47a – 51b are in Appendix IV The communication channels

Figure 52a: The channel of communications for political marketing in Thailand 46

52b: Influential channels for political communication in Northeastern 46

1. Introduction

1.1 Political Marketing

This thesis paper aims to bring out the importance of Marketing in Politics. Brand personality will be used in this investigation and analysis to find out how it will affect the voters decision. The structure of the paper is able to use internationally; however, this thesis will focus on Thailand, as it is the motherland of the authors. Therefore, in order to benefit back to our motherland the decision was made on Thailand as the focused location. The authors will analyze Thai Politics in marketing way by comparing the politics with consumer market. If the political parties are brands of products and leaders in parties are products in the consumer market, voters (Thai people) are customers in this aspect. Thai voters have to choose products (leaders from political parties) from many Brands (Political parties) in the store (election) but in this case political product is different from consumer product in the store because political product is intangible and have no physical evidence for purchasers to try and compare before choosing to buy it. Moreover in politics, for any one election, all voters make their choices on the same day (with trivial exceptions such as postal and proxy votes) so there are almost no purchasing decisions and social group reference with this characteristic and certainly none, which affect as large a number of people (Andrew Lock & Phil Harris 1996).

1.2 Thai Political Background

1.2.1 The beginning of Democracy In 1932 Thailand was changed from Absolute Monarchy to Democracy from a revolution. The revolutionists at that time consisted of Military and Elite who graduated abroad. The aim of the revolution was to have a constitution and form the parliament, which still have the King under the constitution. The first Prime Minister was one of the leaders of the revolutionists automatically. At the beginning only half of the parliament members were from the election. From the first constitution until the sixth the rules are opened to the government to form the parliament themselves without controlling from the legal side. The huge change of Thai democracy happened in year 1973. At that time there was a big protest in order to pursue a real democracy from Thai government. On 14 October 1973, many pro-democracy demonstrators, mostly students, were killed in a bloody but successful effort to overthrow the dictatorial government at the time. After that, Thai people are more alerted according to the election record showing that more people participated in election from then on. (Plikpandin, n.d.)

1.2.2 Thai Political Election In Thailand, there are two main elections; Governmental Election and Senator Election. In this thesis, the authors will focus only on the Governmental Election

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according that it involves more in marketing and politics since the Senator Election does not allow the candidate to promote themselves as well as the candidate cannot be one part of any political party. Governmental election is the most important part of being democratic. The election creates the representatives from the population as well as serving them following the constitution. The Governmental Election in Thailand is separated into two voting systems. First is the Party List voting of which each political party has to choose 100 candidates for being in its party list and the list will be ordered concerning the importance of the person; then, the result will be calculate into percentages from the votes all over the country. Accordingly each party will have the number of Members of Parliament (MPs). The second voting system is the regional Members of Parliament election which one province will have its own MPs of which the number of MPs will depend on the amount of the population. Moreover each province is divided into districts concerning the population and each district cannot have more than 3 MPs. (Nidambe11, 2007)

1.2.3 Thai Election 2007 The last governmental election of Thailand took place in December 2007. After being under control of the military for one year because of the coup d’état, the military established a new constitution and then give the authority back to the population by holding the election democratically. In the election there were 32 parties. However, the two biggest parties in the competition are People Power Party (PPP) and Thai Democrat Party (TDP) as it can be seen from the highest percentage they have from the votes. Accordingly, this thesis will focus on the two main parties in order to investigate the brand personality in the vision of Thai Generation Y voters. Moreover, the PPP represented the winner of the previous election, which was withdrawn by the coup d’état and the TDP is the oldest party of Thailand. (Manager, n.d) People Power Party (PPP) The party was established in 2007 with the perception of being representative of Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT), the last winner of the election to be the government whose power was taken by the military coup d’état. TRT was led by Thaksin Shinnawatra, a successful business man of Thailand. During his power, he was convicted as committing some political crimes such as changing the law to give his own company more benefit which led to the big protest and the coup d’état afterwards. However, they won the latest election to be the present Thai government and the leader of the party, Samak Sundaravej, is serving the country as the present Prime Minister. (Power People Party, n.d.) Thai Democrat Party (TDP) Thai Democrat Party (TDP) is the oldest political party in Thailand since 1956. The party has had six leaders, in which there are three who served the country as the Prime Ministers. Mostly and recently the party has been losing in the political elections; however they always gain the second most votes in the list. Since 2006 the party has

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the new leader, which is Abhisit Vejjajiva, an Oxford graduate with first honor. (Thai Democrat Party, n.d.)

1.3 Generation Y

Generation Y is one kind of the demographic describing the group of people who were born between year 1977 and 1994 which means now in 2008 they are in age from 14 to 31. This thesis will focus on the last governmental election of Thailand occurred in 2007, so the targeted group will be scoped to the people with age from 19 to 31 right now according that they were the voters of Generation Y in the 2007 election. Furthermore, the Generation Y people are described to have some specific personality such as racial diverse, extremely independent and empowered. Moreover, this group of people will be the voters in long term from now on. (NasInsight, n.d.)

1.4 Brand personality

The brand personality is one important part of the brand image (Plummer, 2000), and Aaker (1997) described brand personality as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand”. In addition, Aaker (2002) explained that the brand personality is similar to the one of human, which possesses characteristics such as age and gender, and human personality attribute such as warmth and concern. Aaker also stated that brand personality is both compatible, long-term and that everything associated with a brand affects the personality of it. There are both product-related characteristics, for example, product category, price and attributes, and non-product-related characteristics such as, symbols, country of origin, and celebrity endorser (Aaker, 2002).

1.5 Brand personality in politics

If comparing to consumer product, a consumer who is about to choose between two different brands, which are new and unknown, is more probable to choose brand that he or she recognizes. If he or she knows both brands, the consumer will choose the brand with the most perceived positive attributes (Keller, 1993). The difference in customer’s mind about brand’s attributes is the brand image (Kotler et al., 2005) and customers will use their experience and perceptions to filter the brand (Plummer, 2000). Alike, consumer market, in politics market voters (customers) will also choose the political parties (brand) by use their experience and perceptions to filter the brand. Therefore, brand image of political parties is very significant in political market so political parties have to make their brand image different from others and communicate in positive way in voters’ perception to win the election. Brand image consist of many aspects but one of the most important part of brand image is “brand personality” (Plummer, 2000). Aaker (1997) defines brand

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personality as “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand”. Moreover, it is possible that brand personality influences consumers’ perceptual processing of product information (Aaker, 1997). The concept of brand personality influenced the authors to scope the paper to study in it by adapting it with Thai politics to find the importance and find the ideal one from Thai people. Apart from that, this thesis will find the communication approach and recommend Thai political parties to communicate their brand personality in efficiency.

1.6 Problem statement

What are the important characteristics in brand personality of political parties and leaders for Generation Y Thai voters? And how the parties should communicate them with the Generation Y Thai voters?

1.7 Purpose

Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to investigate and analyze the brand personality of the ideal political party and the ideal poltical leader for Generation Y Thai voters and compare with two biggest parties from the 2007 election. Furthermore, the paper will recommend how to communicate those characteristics of the brand personality to Generation Y Thai voters in five regions.

1.8 Target Audience

This thesis paper is structured to recommend the political parties in Thailand about the ideal brand personality and how to communicate it. Moreover, the paper is useful for the researchers who are interested in investigating the brand personality in politics all over the world. The readers who are interested in politics are also targeted in order to reveal them another aspect of politics.

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2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 Brand Personality

Basically brand in marketing is definite as name, term, design and symbol identify the product as well as differentiate from the others. Brand consists of many aspects such as brand image, brand attitude and brand equity. Brand personality is a component of brand identity. (Aaker, 1996) Personality is defined as the collections of individual characteristics that make a person unique, and which control and individual’s responses to and relationship with the external environment. (Blythe J, 1997, p. 39) There is a study identifying that the personality characteristics influence the consumers on choosing the products. Three properties of the personality explain the nature of it. First, personality reflects individual differences as one personality is a combination of different factors. Second, personality is consistent and enduring. Therefore, the marketers cannot change the personality of the consumers but they can attract them by creating their own brand personality relevant to the personality of the target customers. Third, personality can change by the important change in the life. (Aaker, 1996) A product as a person needs personality to create the stronger brand image. Moreover, a product with personality has potential to gain a better relationship with the customers since the product with a clear personality can position image in the customer’s mind easily. In addition, the brand personality helps the product communicate with the customer in order to contribute the maximum benefit. Also Brand personality helps the company understand the perception of customer having towards their image by giving them the choices of brand personality in marketing research. Giving the uniqueness for a product, the brand personality is considered to influence the success in term of preference and choices for the customers. A product which establishes personality well also ties the emotion of the customer to its brand, resulting in creating trust and loyalty from the customers. The task of the marketers is to find out which brand personality attracts the targeted market the most and deliver that personality to them. (Aaker, 1996) Aaker (1997) defines brand personality as the set of human characteristics associated with a given brand. The brand personality consists of many traits developed into specific five dimensions, called characteristics. Each characteristic has its own traits which are the subsets that will complete the characteristics to be a clear personality. It is explained that the brand personality of a brand is similar to the one of human, which possesses characteristics such as age and gender, and human personality attribute such as warmth and concern. Aaker (2002) developed the trait of personality in 16 traits from 42 traits of human personality. Each trait can summarize in the characters of human. According to Aaker, the traits can be grouped in 5 main characteristics, which are the five dimensions of brand personality (Figure 2)

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Figure 1: Five dimensions of brand personality (Aaker)

To formulate the questionnaires, the authors need same amount of traits in each characteristic. Accordingly we adapted the traits from David A. Aaker, Building Strong Brands (1996). The traits are chosen by the appropriate meanings supporting each other.

Figure 2: Five dimensions of brand personality (Aaker) after adaptation Therefore the chosen traits are Confident in Competence, Feminine and Glamorous in Sophistication, and Western and Rugged in Ruggedness. The traits are chosen also from the meaning in Thai language as it is the language of questionnaires. The trait Feminine might have ambiguous meaning but it has special meaning in Thai as being soft and sensitive. The brand personality has a concept of positioning the personality with specific meanings to the customers. Therefore the customers will use brands with personality to build their own self-image. Furthermore, the brand personality help distinct the product out of the crowds when it come to the competition. Then, it will help the products differentiate themselves, resulting into the competitive advantage. The individuals use the brand with the personality that they perceive themselves to be, which can be called ‘Self-Concept’. Self-concept can be defined as “the totality of the individual’s thoughts and feelings having reference to himself as an object” (Rosenberg, 1979, p. 7). In the other words, they use the brands with the personality to describe their particular personality. (Diamantopoulos A.; Smith G.; Grime I,2007).

Brand personality

Sincerity Excitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness

- Down-to-earth - Honest - Wholesome - Cheerful

- Daring - Spirited - Imaginative - Up-to-date

- Reliable - Intelligent - Confident - Successful

- Upper class - Charming - Feminine - Glamorous

- Outdoorsy - Tough - Western - Rugged

Brand personality


- Down-to-earth - Honest - Wholesome - Cheerful

- Daring - Spirited - Imaginative - Up-to-date

- Reliable - Intelligent - Successful

- Upper class - Charming

- Outdoorsy - Tough

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2.2 Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

IMC is the management concept that emerge all aspects of marketing communication to build positive relationships with customers and other stakeholders. It is a customer-centric that begins with an understanding of the customer. This approach goes far beyond demographics to uncover the customer segments and consumer motivation that drive purchasing decisions. Additional, IMC is data-driven, which depends on information about customers’ behaviors and preferences, to identify and understand a company’s best customers and to make informed decisions regarding how to communicate with them. IMC not only integrates the marketing communications such as advertising, direct and e-commerce marketing and public relations, but also advocates the alignment of all of a company’s business processes from product development to customer service (Journal of Integrated Marketing Communication, n.d.). Elements for IMC strategy (Fill, Ch, 2005, P.297-305) In figure 4 show the elements for integration for IMC strategy

Figure 3: Elements for integration Promotional tools The messages conveyed by each of the promotional tools should be harmonized in order that audiences perceive a consistent set of meanings within the messages they receive (Fill, Ch, 2005). One of the translations of this perspective is that the key visual triggers (design, colors and form) used in advertising should be replicated across the range of promotional tools used, including point of purchase and sales force. Web-enabled communications, customer service and sale promotions can be linked together, through database applications, and all are designed to communicate the same core message (Fill, Ch, 2005).

Relationships

Structures Brands

Promotional Tools Messages

Employees Technology Agencies

IMC strategy

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Messages The theme and the set of core messages used in any campaign should first be determined and then deployed as an integrated whole across the promotional mix. A consideration of the most appropriate mix of communication tools and media might be a better starting point when formulating campaigns. Marketing mix The price and associated values, the product, in terms of the quality, design and tangible attributes, the manner and efficiency of the service delivery people and where and how it is made available, such as the location, Website, retailer/dealer reputation and overall service quality need to be perceived by customers as a coordinated and consistent whole. These aspects with brands are aspects of a consumer’s brand experience and are used to develop images that through time may shape brand reputations. Branding Brands are themselves a form of integration that means internally organizations need to be sufficiently coordinated so that the brand is perceived externally as consistent and uniform. However, brands need to appeal to a number of different audiences (White, 2000) and to do this it is necessary to develop brands that appeal to diverse consumer groups. This requires high level of communication integration, a need to develop a series of innovative messages based around a core proposition. Company need to use multiple executions delivered through a variety of media, each complementing and reinforcing the core brand proposition that the audience is more likely to be surprised or reminded of the brand (and its essence). A further dimension of the branding factor concerns the role of corporate brands and issues of corporate communication. Strategy IMC is regarded by some as a means of using the tools of the promotional mix in a more efficient and synergistic manner. However, IMC requires understanding at the roots in the overall business strategy of an organization to create the messages to customers. Using Porter’s generic strategy, if low-cost strategy, message should stress any price advantage that customers might benefit from. If company using differentiation strategy, company should emphasis on particular attributes that convey the added value and enable clear positioning. Employees All employees should adopt a customer focus and live the brand. This can be achieved partially through the use of training courses and in-house documentation, this usually requires a change of culture and that means a longer period of adjustment and the adoption of new techniques, procedures and ways of thinking and behaving. IMC should be concerned with blending internal and external messages so that there is clarity, consistency and reinforcement of the organization’s (or brand’s) core proposition.

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The seven elements effectively lead to the relationships with the customers. However, the authors will use only five elements from the IMC model according that the information of politics in term of Employees, Technology and Agencies is confidential inside the parties.

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3. Methodology

3.1 The choice of topic

The chosen topic of this research paper is the brand personality in Thai politics aimed to represent one aspect of political marketing. The political situation in Thailand interests the authors, so this project will have the topic of political marketing in Thailand. Comparing politics with business, consumers are the voters who choose the products, which are candidates from political parties. However, political products are different since they are abstract unlike other tangible products. So, in political case to build brand image and good perception in customer minds are the most important. The brand image consists of many aspects as well as it is too broad for the paper. Therefore, we chose the brand personality, a crucial part of brand image, to scope down our paper. Moreover, brand personality delivers the human traits, which can influence the human decision. Then, we range our research narrower with the targeted population, which will be the generation Y voters in Thailand. Generation Y voters are the people who were born in year between 1977 and 1994, but in this case we will focus only on the people born in year between 1977 and 1991, since the valid age of voters by the law are between 18 and 31 years old. Also they are the second biggest group of voters after the Generation X. The reason why we decided to do research on Generation Y is that they will be the voters in the long run according to their age as well as their flexible personality comparing to Generation X people who might have strong belief and stereotypes towards politics. (Evans, M.; Jamal, A. and Foxall, G., 2006, p. 109-110) The political brand personality will be investigated on the two main political parties as well as their leaders. Then, we will compare whether in each party the brand personality of the party itself and the party leader are compatible or not. Furthermore, we will examine which influences the voters more, the party or the party leader.

3.2 The chosen theories

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the brand personality for Generation Y Thai voters, therefore the relevant theories will be chosen. To suit this paper, firstly the brand personality concept is the main framework since it will clarify the brand personality as well as explain them. Therefore, we will have the basic framework to collect the right data and construct the research afterwards. Then, the international communication process will be applied in order to provide the process from Encoder to Decoder. Finally, the IMC concept will be used in the recommendation to suggest how they should deliver the appropriate brand personality to the Thai voters.

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3.2.1 Brand Personality concept The first chosen theory is the brand personality to explain more what the brand personalities are. In this theory it will be identified what the brand personality are by the definition, which is the basic information of this paper. Moreover, this theory will be used in forming questionnaire and focus group to collect the necessary empirical findings.

3.2.2 Integrated Marketing Communication concept The second chosen theory is the IMC, integrated marketing communication as a method to deliver the brand personality to customers in order to investigate how the political parties communicate the brand personality to the consumers, which are the voters.

3.3 The choice of collecting information

To achieve the purpose of the project, the choice of collecting information should be compatible in order to gather the right information. The aim of collecting information in this paper is to investigate which brand personality of Political parties attracts Thai voters the most. Accordingly, both primary data and secondary data will be collected to reach the aim of the research.

3.3.1 Secondary Data

Mostly the information will be gathered via the Internet especially the basic data of the research about the general information in Thailand. We try to use the reliable websites such as the formal website of the Interior Minister to provide the population number which will affect to the number of the primary data we should collect as well as the scope of this research paper. The information about the rules of Thai election is also from the reliable Internet source.

3.3.2 Primary Data For the primary data, the decision was made on using Preliminary Interview and Questionnaires as the main empirical data collecting. Preliminary Interview The author firstly intended to use focus group as the channel to scope the words of brand personality down. However, we found out that it is not too broad to use all the words such as subsets in each personality in the questionnaire. Plus, we will have all the words to fulfill the brand personality, which will make our paper more reliable. Then we decided to do preliminary interview which is a semi-structured interview with the Thai people in each region to gather the ideas towards the brand personality of the parties and the parties’ leaders as well as how they get the messages from the marketing communication.

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The semi-structured interview gives us the first information from the interviewee under control of the authors in order to limit the information to be inside the topic. Following Fischer (2006), the interviewee will give in-depth and open opinion inside the guideline that the authors control conversations. As a result, we have clearer picture for the questionnaires, for example how we should form the questionnaires leading to the correct information. Furthermore, our thesis also investigates the marketing communication to approach the voters rightly, and the preliminary interview gives us the information about how they receive the political information.

Question Purpose 1. What do you think about the brand

personality of the political parties and the leaders in Thailand?

To gain the rough information from the Thai perspective in term of brand personality in politics in order to formulate the questionnaire.

2. Which personality matches each party in your opinion?

To pull out some opinion towards each party in term of brand personality in politics in order to formulate the questionnaire.

3. What ways of communication do you think you receive the information from the political parties?

To gain information about the way of communication to deliver the brand personality in order to formulate the questionnaire.

4. What is the ideal brand personality of the political parties in your opinion?

To gain some opinion about the ideal brand personality of the political parties in order to formulate the questionnaire.

Figure 4: Question and purpose from preliminary interview

Steps of conducting preliminary interview

Preparation:

First, the authors will inform the participants about the objective of the interview. Plus, the authors will create several questions constructed by the theory in the aim of finding the necessary information. Then, reminding them again before the interview takes place.

Question Developing:

Forming the questions from the frameworks, which will not be over ten questions in order to give the participants time to discuss and get their opinion. The types of the question are the following:

1. Behaviors 2. Opinions/values

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3. Feelings 4. Knowledge 5. Sensory 6. Background/demographics

Session Planning:

The interview will not last more than one hour and will be conducted in persons and also via Skype according to the distance of the interacting persons. The participants will be informed about the goal of the session and also the details. Moreover, all the conversation will be recorded and concluded afterwards.

Session Facilitating:

The research conductors have to be sure that all the necessary information is already identified and recorded. Then, the information will be ordered and interpreted into the scope of the research paper. The session will be closed afterwards.

Questionnaires

In order to collect the data covering the generation Y voters from every region, the author will use the questionnaire, as it is proper method to approach the large amount of people. The rating scales questionnaire will be used in part of gathering data about the brand personality of the parties and the leaders. Following Fisher (2004, p.163), the rating scales in questionnaires ask the respondents to rate or evaluate the choices. Accordingly the questionnaires will result the perspective of the Generation Y Thai voters towards the brand personality of the political parties as well as the percentages of the importance of each word. Afterwards, the rating scales questionnaire is used in order to gather the data about the channel of communication during the election process. The questions ask respondents to rate their option in a scale from 5 = Strongly agree with, 4 = Agree with, 3 = Moderate, 2 = Disagree with, 1 = Strongly Disagree with

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Down-to-earth 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Honest 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Wholesome 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Cheerful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Daring 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Spirited 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Imaginative 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Up-to-date 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Reliable 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Intelligent 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Confident 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Successful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Upper-class 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Charming 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Feminine 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Glamorous 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Outdoorsy 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Tough 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Western 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Rugged 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 The authors divided the questionnaires into 6 parts: Part 1: Profile of respondent This part is to get the background of the respondents especially classification the region of respondents Part 2: brand personality of currently Thai political parties This part investigates the brand personality of currently main political parties which are Power People party, the present Thai government party, and Thai Democrat party.

Traits of personalities

Which traits do you think most suitable with

your ideal political party?


your ideal political leader?

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Part 3: brand personality of currently Thai political leaders This part investigates the brand personality of currently main political leaders who are Samak Sundoravej, the leader of Power People party and the present Thai prime minister, and Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of Thai democratic party. Part 4: The ideal brand personality of currently Thai political parties and leaders This part investigates the ideal brand personality of Thai ideal political party and the ideal leader from Generation Y Thai voters. Part 5: Other information about the election This part is to get the information about the election that voters vote for political party or vote for the leader of the party. If voters vote for the party that mean party is more important than the product which is the leader, in the other way if voters vote for the leader that mean the product of the party is more important. Part 6: The channel of communication This part is to get the information about the channels of communication that political party and leader used to communicate with the voters. Also it will investigate which way influents the decision of voters. The methodology and data gathering are as the following: Population and Sampling techniques According to official website from Thai Ministry of Interior, the population in Thailand is 63,038,247 people but the number of Thai citizen who have name in census registration is 61,544,806 (Department of Provincial Administration, January, 2008). In order to reduce the margin of error and make the thesis more reliable, the authors have to take a sample that is representative for the whole population (Fisher C., 2007, P.189). By this way, the authors apply cluster-sampling technique, dividing the panels and questionnaires into geographic groups. According to Thai national official statistic website divided Thailand in five Regions, which are Northern, Southern, Northeastern, Central and Bangkok excluded from Central regions according to the massive population. The number of population and percentage are in the following table (Figure 5a & 5b).

Geographic Number of population %

Bangkok 5,528,241 9 Central part 15,062,417 24

Northern part 11,375,521 18 Southern part 8,521,845 14

Northern-east part 21,056,782 35

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Total 61,544,806 100

Figure 5a: The geographic and number of population

9%

35%

14%

24%

18%

Figure 5b: % Thai population divided by regions Due to the limitation of time in gathering and reliability of information, with the number of population, 61,544,806, the authors cannot provide the information that can represent all of population within two months so we scope the number of population by using the generation type of demographic, which Evan, Jamal and Foxall (2006) divided groups of consumer demographic into the following; Generation Y who was born between 1977 and 1994, aging between 14 and 31 years old at the present, Generation X who were born from 1966 to 1976, aging between 32 and 42 years old, and Baby boomer generation who was born from 1945 to 1965, aging from 43 to 63 (Evans, M., Jamal, A. and Foxall, G., 2006, P.109 - 112). Therefore, the authors divided the group of Thai population by aging of demographic (Figure 6).

BBaannggkkookk

NNoorrtthheerrnn--eeaasstt CCeennttrraall

NNoorrtthheerrnn

SSoouutthheerrnn

%% PPooppuullaattiioonn

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Generation Age Number of population %

New Generation 1 - 13 11,967,747 20 Generation Y 14 - 31 17,748,475 29 Generation X 32 - 42 11,852,155 19 Baby Boomer 43 - 63 14,922,608 24

Over 63 63 -100 up 5,049,035 8

Total 61,544,806 100

Figure 6a: The generation of population

Generation Age Number of population %

Generation Y 18 – 31 years old 18 - 31 13,893,893 23

Figure 6b: The number of population of Generation Y who can vote

The authors chose Generation Y who are in the age between 18 and 31 since the enactment of voter in election is aging equal or more than18 years old. This population is 23% (from 18 to 31 years old) of all population, which is the second number of Thai population (Figure 6c). The supporting reason to choose this generation to be focal population is that this generation is the youngest generation who has right for voting and can be the potential voter base for the political parties in future. Moreover, generation Y was born in information revolution era that more accepting of multi-nationals and less interested in protesting and this group is useful clues as the sort of message and media to use and reach them (Evans, M., Jamal, A. and Foxall, G., 2006, P.109). The authors didn’t pick Baby Boomer to be the focal group since this group of people have aging more than 40 years old who may have high brand loyalty with one of the political parties and hard to convince and change their mind.

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Baby Boomer24%

Age unde18

Over63

X Gen19%

Y Gen 18 31

Figure 6c: % population, which combine age under 18 years old

According to official website from Thai Ministry of Interior, the population of Thai people who have age between 18 – 31 years old are divided in following table (Figure 7a and 7b). (Department of Provincial Administration, n.d.)

Geographic Number of population %

Bangkok 1,190,952 9 Central part 3,336,681 24

Northern part 2,443,779 18 Southern part 2,024,902 15

Northern-east part 4,897,579 34

Total 13,893,893 100

Figure 7a: Number of population age between 18 – 31 years old

%% PPooppuullaattiioonn ((ddiivviiddeedd aaggee uunnddeerr 1188 ))

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Bangkok - 9%Northern - 18%

Northern-East - 34%

Southern - 15%

Central - 24%

Figure 7b: % population, which age between 18 – 31 years old

For questionnaire, the authors use Saunders (2002) with 5% acceptable marginal error; population 10 million will use minimum in 384 copies. Moreover, there will be five groups divided by the regions in order to make the information more reliable the authors weigh the number of questionnaires by the percent statistic of population. To distribute the questionnaires all over Thailand, we employ a part-time surveyor who has a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) majoring in Marketing. As being an expert in contributing questionnaires, she has connection with her team works in the universities in every region of Thailand. She has been experiencing in this questionnaire field, so it can be guaranteed that the obtained information can be trusted. The approaches to gathering primary data are as below: 1. Target respondents - Preliminary Interviews

Thai citizen who have age between 19 and 31 years old (5 persons) - Questionnaires Thai citizen who have age between 19 and 31 years old (Bangkok 35 copies, Central 92 copies, Northern 69 copies, Southern 58 copies and Northern-east 130 copies)

2. Distribution of questionnaires

- Questionnaires are sent by e-mail - Hire the distributor in Bangkok, Thailand to distribute the questionnaires in 5 parts.

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3. Number of questionnaires distributed

- 450 copies Thai citizen who have age between 19 and 31 years old according to the 2007 election. (Bangkok 41 copies, Central 108 copies, Northern 80 copies, Southern 68 copies and Northern-east 153 copies)

4. Questionnaires duration

- 21/04/2008 – 16/05/2008

3.4 Analysis of Information

The main information in this paper is the primary data, which is the result of preliminary interviews and questionnaires. After that, the raw information will be preceded into the quantitative information, which can be percentage in order to organize the information after gathering. The secondary data from the reliable sources will be summarized in the finding part first and used in the analysis to scope the information as well as being the necessary basic information of the paper. The brand personality framework will be firstly the outline of the preliminary interview and questionnaires. Secondly there will also be the framework of analyzing the data into the result of which aspect brand personality influence the Thai Generation Y voters the most. Not only the interviewees give us the opinion of the politics in term of brand personality, they are also scrutinized on how the proper communication gives that aspect to them as well as how they perceive the present parties and leaders. After getting the ideal brand personality of political parties and leaders, the Integrated Marketing Communication Model will be applied in order to pursuit the right way of communication to get the right perception from the voters. The model of IMC will be useful since the concept of marketing will be adapted into politics as well as provide the suitable communication with marketing techniques. This analysis depends on the result of the data about how they perceive the parties and the leaders from the aspect of brand personality. Finally, the recommendation will be made according to the IMC model as well.

3.5 Limitation

According to the time limited as well as the distance of the authors and the focal country of the research, the authors necessarily use the secondary source such as the internet and the distributors to spread questionnaires. The authors also beware of the information by using only reliable source. Short time is also one of the important things that limit this paper. The other limitation is the election actually held in December last year, which means it was about five months before writing this thesis. Although the election was held not so long before, the Power People Party has been running the government for a while, which can change the perception of the people towards the party from during the election and after being the government. Language barrier also limited the thesis since both of the authors are not English native speakers. Limitation of the Theoretical Framework in term of analyzing IMC is the authors cannot find the confidential information about employees, technology and

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agencies from political party so the authors will analyze only the other four main factors in the elements for integration for IMC. Another limitation comes from the focal population, Generation Y voters, which are 23 percents of all the population in Thailand. Therefore, this thesis cannot represent the whole population.

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4. Finding

4.1 Secondary Data

4.1.1 Generation Y voters The targeted group for this paper is the voters in Generation Y which means the people who were born between 1977 and 1994. The thesis also pick only the people who have the right to vote in the 2007 election which means they are in the age of 19-31 nowadays. The unique characteristics of this group have three main descriptions. Firstly they are racial and ethically diverse as they were born in the time of globalization. Second, they are independent. They are surrounded by the divorce, single parents, day care and technological revolution, for example. Lastly, they are empowered, unlike the older generations; they learned to make their own decision since the young age. (Evans M., Jamal A, Foxall, 2006, p 109) Moreover, they are also described as being skeptical, adaptable and self-image. They are now very important in the consumer behavior as they are the consumers. The olds of this group are also in the beginning of working age, perceived as the future since they are much active and self-driven into the success.(USAtoday, 2008) In Thailand, the Generation Y is also the biggest population with the number of 17,748,475. After cutting the people without voting right in the 2007 election, the number was down to 13,893,893. (Department of Provincial Administration, 2008)

4.1.2 Power People Party The PPP was actually founded in 1998 but at first they did not get involved much in the political election. Then, after the coup d'état, the politicians, who were the members of Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) which was banded by the military, has to find a new party, so most of them moved to the PPP party as well as the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinnawatra who is one of the administrators of the party. The focused policies are also furthered from the TRT policies. Accordingly, the party is known as the nominee of the TRT party who still has a huge group of population as the supporters especially in the Northeastern, which contains the most population in Thailand. (Power People Party, n.d)

4.1.3 Thai Democrat Party The oldest political in Thailand and probably in South East Asia was founded on April 6th, 1946, about a decade after changing to democracy of Thailand. The party has had seven leaders already and three of them served the country as the Prime Ministers. The present party leader is Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has been in charge for two years. The name of the party was influenced by the Democrat Party in the US as it has the same motto to fight for the democracy for the country. (Democrat Party, n.d)

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Sixty years of the party, it has been into the democratic system and through some military power, still it can remain the party to be the oldest political party in Thailand. Lately, they have been the main Opposition party as they lost most of the time in the election. Although the winning party has come and gone, the TDP is still in the system as one of the biggest party, which serves the country mostly as the Opposition. (Democrat Party, n.d) According to the result of 2007 election, the TDP gained the votes from the Southern part the most followed by Bangkok.

4.1.4 The 2007 Election In order to investigate the right brand personality of Thai generation Y voters, the author focused on the last election in 2007, in which there were two main parties in the competition to be the government. The 2007 election was also interesting because it was the democratic election after the power was seized by a coup d’état from the military in 2006. The military has been controlling the government for one year and half until last year they leased the power into the form of the governmental election as it was mentioned in the introduction. The reason of the coup d’état was that the prime minister at that time, Thaksin Shinnawatra of Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT), was convicted of some corruptions as well as there was a big protest against him. During the protest, there was also the re election and he also won that. However, the military decided to overthrew him by giving the reason of remaining the security of the country. At that time some people who supported the TRT party took that action of the military as robbing the democratic victory. (Manager, n.d) After being in charge of the power, the military held the democratic election in 2007. This time all the important actors of TRT as well as the party were banned from the election. However, the newborn party was established as Power People Party (PPP) which is seen as the nominee of the previous TRT since all the members were once the supporters of Thaksin Shinnawatra. The result was as everybody expected. PPP won the 2007 election to be the government of Thailand. As a result, Samak Sundoravej, the party leader, turned to be the Prime Minister of Thailand, whom everybody perceives as the follower of Thaksin. (Manager, n.d) The other main party of this election was Thai Democrat Party (TDP), the oldest political party of Thailand. In this election, it was the first time of the party with the new party leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the youngest party leader in Thai history. The person was perceived as the gentleman of Thai politics. The party, although it has experienced a long time in Thai politics, has been losing lately in the elections. And this time there was no difference even though the leader seems to be a beloved one of the Thai people. (Democrat Party, n.d)

4.1.5 Result from 2007 election In order to measure the success of each party, the number of Members of Parliament from 2007 Election that they gained from the election is an obvious result. The result will be divided into the regions of Thailand (Figure 9). (Manager, n.d.)

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Bangkok Bangkok is divided into twelve districts in which there are three Members of Parliament (MPs), so totally there are 36 MPs. In 36 MPs, 10 are from Power People Party and 26 are from Thai Democrat Party. By that, from the total amount of MPs, the PPP gained 27 percents and TDP gained 73 percents. (Manager, n.d.) Central The Central region includes also the eastern area of Thailand, in which there are 26 provinces. In total there are 95 MPs in this region. PPP has 38 MPs which equals 40 percents; meanwhile, TDP has 35 MPs which equals 36 percents. (Manager, n.d.) Northern Northern has 77 MPs from 16 provinces. PPP has 39 MPs, which is 51 percents; meanwhile TDP has 16 MPs, which equals 21 percents. (Manager, n.d.) Northeastern Northeastern is the biggest region with the highest population in Thailand. It contains 19 provinces with 132 MPs. PPP won 98 seats from this region, which is 74 percents. TDP has only 6 in total, which equals 4 percents. (Manager, n.d.) Southern Southern has 56 Mps from 14 provinces. PPP has 2, which is 4 percents. In this region, TDP won 49 seats, which equals 88 percents. (Manager, n.d.)

Party Members of Parliament from 2007 election Bangkok Central Northern Northeastern Southern

PPP 10 38 39 98 2 TDP 26 35 16 6 49 Others 0 22 22 28 5 Total 36 95 77 132 56

Figure 8: Members of Parliament from 2007 election from each region

4.1.6 Communication 4.1.6.1 Promotional Tools The usage of marketing distribution especially in advertising is nowadays very high in the politics especially during the elections. The main promotional tools for the political parties are billboard, television, speech, radio and internet.

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Power People Party The party is perceived as very well done in marketing communication. They have strategies in marketing furthered from the Thai Rak Thai Party who was successful also in the past. They have the strategies in marketing as the following: (Nidambe11, 2008)

- Plan the marketing tools from outside to inside (outside-in, not inside-out planning).

- Use the brand and celebrity contacts through the fate towards the leader of the party.

- Use the marketing communication continuously. - Use zero based message delivery. - Aim to create the relationship with the people (relationship marketing). - Use the integrated communication with highest quality in all forms of contact. - Keep on doing the research and accountability.

To accomplish these strategies, the party used mainly the following tools of advertising: Television

During the election, the party launched six spots in the television which the outstanding one called ‘Happiness’. In the mentioned spot, the happiness of the worker class is outstandingly focused. Example of advertisement (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmSa9knSd-s ) Billboard The billboards contain mostly contain the huge loco name of the party. Moreover, the used messages are short, up-to-date and hit by heart, for example, ‘give us back the constitution’ which is the issue during the election. (Power People Party, n.d.)

Figure 9a: PPP’s Billboard Speech The party focused a lot on giving speeches as we can see from how often they gave especially from the leader. The place they used was always at the field able to contain a huge number of people.

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Figure 9b: PPP’s Speech Road show They conduct the road shows all over the countries especially in the northeastern of Thailand, which are the biggest part with the highest number population. (Power People Party, n.d) Thai Democrat Party The party spent the highest money comparing to the others. They focused on the high technological media especially multimedia such as television, internet and radio. Especially through the internet channel they invested the websites which are separated into two kinds, one formal and the one for young generations. Moreover, Abhisit, TDP’s leader, has his personal website (www.abhisti.org) and a Hi5, the most popular social networking website in Thailand. However, they also have basic advertisement in politics as billboard, speech and road shows. (CMprice, 2008) According to a media researcher, AC Nielson, the party spent 54.6 million baht (approximately 10 million Swedish crowns) and most of the money was spent in the television channels. The speech of the leader was conducted differently from the PPP party. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the party leader, conducted the biggest speech in the form of talk show in one of the most luxurious hotel in Bangkok, Plaza Athenee, which the name of the talk show is Thailand back to business. Moreover, most of the audiences are the businessmen, the journalists and the economical ambassadors. (Prachachat, 2008) The billboards of the party mostly contained the picture of the party leader. The messages were not as aggressive as the PPP. The road show information of the party is hardly founded. 4.1.6.2 Messages In the campaigns, it is necessary for the parties to have the messages hitting the voters by heart. The authors chose five core messages each party used most often to deliver their focused policies during the election.

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Power People Party The PPP has the following five messages as the core. Create Harmony of the Nationality Accordint that there has been problems about separating themselves out of Thailand in the south, the party launch the policy as creating harmony in the nationality to solve this problem. (Karnmaung, 2007) Decrease income tax: remain VAT The party aimed to manage the national budget efficiently, so the income tax decrease but the value added tax (vat) is stable. In addition, the investment in the country will be higher. (Karnmaung, 2007) 30 Baht Health Card Further this policy from the last government. People will be covered by using this card all over the country. The people will get all the healthcares just by paying 30 baht in the coordinating hospital of the region. (Karnmaung, 2007) Thai Food: World Food The party aims to support the export of Thai food to all over the world in order to upgrade Thai food as the main food of the world. Furthermore, they also support the food industry in the country. (Karnmaung, 2007) Sky Train: 15 Baht for every route. With the budget of 500 thousand millions baht in three years, the sky train will cover all the areas in Bangkok and its region. Moreover, it aims to cost only 15 Baht within all routes. (Karnmaung, 2007) Thai Democrat Party Invest 450,000 millions in transportation

The party aims to build and connect all kinds of transportations such as buses, sky trains, subways as well as the train covering all Bangkok. (Karnmaung, 2007) Free education, Good education, Jobs provided

Thai students will have free education until finishing high schools in the governmental schools with quality. (Karnmaung, 2007) Lower cost of living: Lower obligation To accomplish this aim, the party aim to decrease the cost of production by the following (Karnmaung, 2007):

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- Cancel the budget to save gasohol and diesel oil. - Give the household with low electricity bill an extra bonus such as free service

charge. Strengthen the economics. In order to drive the economics, the means are (Karnmaung, 2007):

- Lower the transportation costs - Increase the income from promoting the tourism without destroying the

environment. - Enlarge the agricultural production as well as the agricultural industry in four

years. - Continuously enhance the capability of Thai economics by 7-8 percents.

4.2 Primary Data

The information in this part is mainly from the questionnaires we spread all over Thailand in five regions. In the questionnaires, we asked for the perception towards each party and its leader in term of brand personality. The communication of the political parties and how they advertise themselves are in the questionnaires as well. According to the questionnaires, the following table (Figure 10) are the requested numbers and actual receive from 22 April until 16 May 2008.

Geographic Number of questionnaires

Minimum Numbers Actual Receive (16/05/08) Bangkok 35 51

Central part 92 88 Northern part 69 58 Southern part 58 41

Northern-east part 130 91 Total 384 329

Figure 10: Actual received questionnaire

According to the questionnaires, the following are the conclusion. The data will be organized into three main parts following the questionnaire. Firstly, the statistic about the brand personality of the parties as well as the ideal party will be revealed.

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4.2.1 Brand personality of the Parties The parties are the main component of the election. Every candidate needs to participate in a party. The parties are also the main institution of the politics in every system, not only democracy. A party in the marketing aspect is a company, which needs a good image to attract the customers which in this case are the Generation Y voters. Then, to deliver the right brand personality, which attracts the customers, the party is the company, which has to build that ideal personality. From the rating score questionnaire in Part 2 (brand personality of currently Thai political parties), the respondents rated the traits and characteristics of Political arty as the following information:

4.2.1.1 Power People Party Respondents from Bangkok The Power People Party is now the government of Thailand as they won the election in 2007. The result of the questionnaires in the perception of the Bangkok people (19 – 31 years old) shows that (see Figure 11a and 11b in Appendix II) the Bangkokians perceive the PPP as being Confident 3.57, a trait in Confidence the most. However, the characteristic of PPP is Excitement, which contains Daring 3.46, Spirited and Imaginative 3.27, three of the top five traits of PPP. The other trait of PPP is being Rugged 2.95. Moreover from Figure 11b (Appendix II), it can be seen that Excitement (3.15), Ruggedness (2.92) and Competence (2.70), are the obvious characteristics of PPP. They are perceived low in Sophistication (2.29) and Sincerity (2.14) in Bangkok. Respondents from Central (Exclude Bangkok) The Generation Y voters in Central part of Thailand perceive PPP as being Confident (3.93) the most. They also describe then as being Daring (3.63), Imaginative (3.59), Outdoorsy (3.33) and Rugged (3.31) more than other traits. The party is also perceived low in being Feminine (1.93), Reliable (1.96) and Honest (1.85). Looking at the chart (see Figure 12a in Appendix II) it can be seen that it is quite different between each trait. The strongest characteristic of PPP for the Generation Y voters in central part is Excitement (3.36). Ruggedness (3.06) and Competence (3.00) can also describe the party, but the party is not obvious in the characteristics of Sincerity (2.16) and Sophistication (2.44) (see Figure 12b in Appendix II). Respondents from Northern region In the north, PPP is perceived highest in being Daring and Confident (4.14). The traits of being Rugged (4.00), Spirited (3.86) and Up-to-date (3.43) can describe PPP well too for the Generation Y voters in the north (see Figure 13a in Appendix II).

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PPP has the most obvious characteristic of Excitement (3.64) in the north. The party also has the characteristic of Ruggedness (3.29) and Competence (3.25), but they are perceived low characteristics of Sophistication (2.28) and Sincerity (2.32) according to the chart (Figure 13b in Appendix II). Respondents from Northeastern region The trait that PPP have the most obvious is being Confident (3.79). Apart from that the party is also perceived as being Daring (3.46) and Rugged (3.26); moreover, the trait of being Imaginative, Up-to-date and Outdoorsy (3.18) can describe the party well. The Generation Y northeastern voters think of the PPP as being Feminine (1.82) the least (Figure 14a in Appendix II). The characteristic of Excitement (3.24) can describe PPP the best. Ruggedness (3.09) and Competence (2.94) are also the characteristics they have (see Figure 14b in Appendix II). Respondents from Southern region The trait of being Confident (3.90) describes PPP the most in the opinion of Generation Y southern voters. The party is also perceived as being Western (3.50) and Glamorous (3.40) in the south. The Generation Y southern voters perceived the PPP as being less Honest (1.80), Wholesome, Charming and Feminine (2.00) (Figure 15a in Appendix II). The characteristics of Excitement (2.98) and Competence (2.95) are used to describe the PPP the most. The party is perceived low in Sincerity (2.03) and Sophistication (2.49) (Figure 15b in Appendix II). Overall in Thailand From the average rating of 20 trait of brand personality, the questionnaires show that the strongest trait of PPP is “Confident”, which refer to the Competence character. According to questionnaire, PPP show the 5 highest traits in Confident 3.81 point, Daring 3.51 point, Imaginative 3.29 point, Rugged 3.28 point and Up-to-date 3.11 point from 20 characters.

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3.28

2.81

2.94

3.09

2.85

1.9

2.17

2.64

3.81

2.8

2.81

2.08

3.11

3.29

3.08

3.51

2.56

2.04

1.86

2.39

0 1 2 3 4 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 16a: PPP’s traits of brand personality in Thailand

From questionnaire after grouped all the 20 personalities in 5 characters in main dimensions of brand personality from Aaker, Thai voters (19 – 31 years old) feel that Power People Party, which is Thai government at present, has strong character in excitement 3.25 point and show the character of competence and ruggedness in close amount (Figure 16b). Power People Party (PPP) is representing the former government party, Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT), and from preliminary interview found that most respondents felt PPP and TRT have the same brand image and similar character.

Chart 16b: PPP’s characteristics of brand personality in Thailand

2.22

3.253.02

2.42

3.03

0

1

2

3

4

5


Avg. Rating

Type of Brand Personality

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4.2.1.2 Thai Democrat Party Respondents from Bangkok Thai Democrat party’s most obvious trait for the Bangkokians (Figure 17a in Appendix II) is Confident (3.57) in the characteristic of Competence followed by Spirited (3.54) in Excitement. They are also perceived as Intelligent, Reliable and Feminine (3.46) at the same level. The characteristic of TDP in the perception of Generation Y Bangkokian voters is highest in Competence (3.44) and Sophistication (3.32) (Figure 17b in Appendix II). The chart tells that they are not clearly different in the characteristics as the number is not much different comparing to one another. Respondents from Central (Exclude Bangkok) For the Generation Y voters in Central region, the TDP is described as being Spirited (3.85) the most. The party is also obvious in being Reliable (3.78), Feminine and Confident (3.70). They are perceived equally in being Intelligent and Upper-class (3.63) (Figure 18a in Appendix II). The party has the characteristic of Competence (3.58) and Sophistication (3.43) the most for Generation Y voters in Central part. The party is perceived low in Sincerity (3.33) and Ruggedness (3.30). Concerning the chart (see Figure 18b in Appendix II), it can be seen that the characteristics of TDP are not different comparing to each other. Respondents from Northern region The TDP give the sense of being Feminine (3.57) the most for the Generation Y voters in the north. The second one is Down-to-earth trait (3.43). The party is also highly recognized as being Charming (3), Honest and Reliable (2.86) (See Figure 19a in Appendix II). The party presents the characteristic of Sophistication (2.82) the most obvious followed by Sincerity (2.79) for the Generation Y voters in the north (see Figure 19b in Appendix II). Respondents from Northeastern region The trait describing TDP the most is being Feminine (3.77), which is quite higher than other traits according to the Chart (see Figure 20a in Appendix II). They are also perceived as being Reliable (3.38), Down-to-earth and Upperclass (3.33). The Generation Y northeastern voters recognize the TDP as having the characteristic of Sophistication (3.23) the most. The characteristics of Competence (3.14) and Sincerity (3.13) can describe TDP as well. The characteristic TDP has the least is Ruggedness (2.82) in the northeastern point of view (Figure 20b in Appendix II).

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Respondents from Southern region The Generation Y southern voters perceive TDP as being Honest (4.10) the most obvious. Moreover, the traits of being Intelligent (4.00) and Reliable (3.90) represent the party as well as being Confident and Wholesome (3.80) (Figure 21a in Appendix II). The characteristic that describe TDP the most obvious is Competence (3.93) followed by Sincerity (3.53). Ruggedness (2.85) is the characteristic, which the party has in low points (Figure 21b in Appendix II). Overall in Thailand The result of questionnaires gathered from overall the country shows that the TDP is recognized the most as being Feminine, Reliable and Spirited from the Generation Y Thai voters. Being Honest, Reliable and Intelligent can also describe the party. They are low perceived in being Cheerful, Rugged and Western. According to the chart, it can be seen that the party has not much differences between the traits.

3.02

2.81

3.11

3.05

2.87

3.63

3.29

3.29

3.38

3.16

3.38

3.5

2.88

2.92

3.45

3.08

2.74

3.31

3.39

3.32

0 1 2 3 4 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 22a: TDP’s traits of brand personality in Thailand The obvious characteristics of TDP in the opinion of Generation Y Thai voters are Competence and Sophistication. Similar to the trait chart, TDP’s characteristics are not much different from one another.

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Chart 22b: TDP’s characteristics of brand personality in Thailand

4.2.1.3 Ideal Political Party Respondents from Bangkok According to Figure 23a in Appendix II, the ideal political party in Bangkokians’ point of view is that they need the traits of being Honest (4.76), and Reliable (4.73) the most followed by Spirited (4.7), Wholesome and Intelligent (4.62). However, the party has to show the characteristic of Competence (4.52) as the most important. Excitement (4.35) and Sincerity (4.20) are the second and the third important characteristic respectively. The characteristic of Sophistication (3.40) is the least important for the Generation Y voters in Bangkok (see Figure 23b in Appendix II). Respondents from Central (Exclude Bangkok) According to the questionnaires (Figure 24a in Appendix II), it is important for the party to be Honest (4.96), Wholesome (4.93) and Spirited (4.93) to gain votes from Generation Y voters in Central region. The traits of being Intelligent (4.86) and Reliable (4.75) are also important in their point of view toward the ideal party. Overall the characteristic of Competence (4.64) is the most important followed by Excitement (4.37) and Sincerity (4.29). Sophistication (3.37) is the characteristic, which they take as the least important (Figure 24b in Appendix II).

3.193.08

3.353.27

2.99

0

1

2

3

4

5



Avg. Rating

35

Respondents from Northern region The ideal party (Figure: 25a in Appendix II) has to be Spirited (4.86) and Daring (4.74) as the highest in the opinion of Generation Y voters in Northern. Also, the party has to be Confident (4.71) and Tough (4.65) to gain the votes for them. The least wanted for them is Glamorous (2.29). The characteristic of the ideal party is Excitement (4.44) as the most important as well as Competence (4.43). Sophistication (3.04) is least needed (Figure 25b in Appendix II). Respondents from Northeastern region According to questionnaires (Figure 26a in Appendix II), it is important for the party to be Confident and Spirited (4.64) to gain the votes from Generation Y northeastern voters. The ideal party, moreover, should be Wholesome (4.38) and Reliable (4.37) according to the Trait chart. Being Glamorous (2.56) and Upper-class (3.38) is not necessary for the Generation Y northeastern voters. The characteristic they want from the party is Competence (4.38) and Excitement (4.09). It is unnecessary to have the characteristic of Sophistication (3.20) (Figure 26b in Appendix II). Respondents from Southern region In order to be ideal for the Generation Y southern voters, the party must have the traits of being Wholesome (4.67), Honest and Spirited (4.56) as well as Reliable (4.44) and Intelligent (4.53). The party does not have to be much Glamorous (2.56) and Western (2.67) (Figure 27a in Appendix II). The Generation Y southern voters require Competence (4.40) the most from the party followed by Excitement (4.17) and Sincerity (4.11). But, the party is not necessary to have Sophistication (2.92) (Figure 27b in Appendix II). Overall in Thailand The ideal party in Generation Y Thai voters’ opinion has to be Spirited, Honest and Reliable. They also tend to vote for the party with the traits of being Wholesome and Intelligent as well. The party is not necessary to be Glamorous in Generation Y Thai voters’ perspective.

36

3.89

3.15

4.28

3.82

2.65

3.65

3.45

3.41

4.27

4.35

4.55

4.67

4.33

3.69

4.73

4.28

3.56

4.59

4.7

3.67

0 1 2 3 4 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 28a: Ideal political party traits

The important characteristics of the ideal party are Competence, Excitement and Sincerity respectively. The party is not required to have Sophistication in their opinion.

Figure 28b: Characteristics of ideal political part

4.2.2 Brand personality of the Leaders In political terms there are many aspects consisting especially in the elections. The decision of the population can be variably different. The leader is one of the features having influence on the people. The leader is the most obvious representative of the party, which should deliver the right image of the party.

4.184.25

4.46

3.29

3.79

0

1

2

3

4

5



Avg. Rating

37

4.2.2.1 Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party Respondents from Bangkok According to Figure 29a (Appendix III), it tells that in the perception of Generation Y Bangkokian voters the most obvious trait of Mr.Samak is Confident (3.87), which is much higher than other traits. He is also perceived highly as being daring (3.48) and rugged (3.35). The lowest trait for him is Feminine (1.52). The characteristic of Mr.Samak is Ruggedness (2.78) and Excitement (2.35) correspondingly according to the chart. He is perceived lowest in Sophistication (1.88) (Figure 29b in Appendix III). Respondents from Central (Exclude Bangkok) The Generation Y voters in Central region perceive Samak, as being Confident (4.12) the most and it is much higher than other trait according to the trait Chart. Being Daring (3.8) is another obvious trait of him. Additionally he is also described as being Rugged (3.32), Imaginative, Spirited, Down-to-earth (3.20), and Up-to-date (2.52) (Figure 30a in Appendix III). The characteristic of Samak is Excitement (3.18) as the highest from the chart. He also has the characteristic of Ruggedness (2.85) and Competence (2.68), but he is low in the characteristic of Sophistication (1.90) (Figure 30b in Appendix III). Respondents from Northern region The Generation Y northern voters recognize Samak as being Confident (4.29) and Rugged (4.00) the most. He also represents the traits of being Tough, Daring (3.71) and Spirited (3.43) respectively. The chart shows that he is low in being Feminine (1.14) (Figure 31a in Appendix III). The characteristic (Figure 31b in Appendix III) describing Samak the best is Ruggedness (3.25) as well as Excitement (3.25) with the same point. Sophistication (1.68) is what Samak does not have. Respondents from Northeastern region The Generation Y northeastern voters describe Samak as being Confident (3.83), Daring (3.74) and Rugged (3.57) the most. They also think of him as being Imaginative (3.34) and Spirited (3.09). In their opinion he is not Feminine (1.46) as this trait has the lowest point (Figure 32a in Appendix III). The characteristic that Samak deliver the most is Excitement (3.12). Ruggedness (2.93) is also the characteristic that he has; on the other hand, he has quite low Sophistication (1.72) (Figure 32b in Appendix III).

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Respondents from Southern region In Generation Y Southern voters’ opinion, Samak is highly Confident (4.00), Rugged (3.63) and Daring (3.22). The traits that he has less are Glamorous (1.89), Reliable (1.89) and Successful (1.89) (Figure 33a in Appendix III). The characteristics of Excitement (2.82) and Ruggedness (2.80) describe Samak the best. He has less Sophistication (1.89) in their perception (Figure 33b in Appendix III). Overall in Thailand Generation Y Thai voters perceive Samak the most as being Confident, Daring and Rugged correspondingly. He is also described as being Tough and Imaginative. The traits that he is less in being are Feminine, Charming and Glamorous which are all in Sophistication characteristic.

3.47

2.14

3

2.93

1.91

1.51

1.8

2.09

3.94

2.23

2.2

1.97

2.33

3.17

2.99

3.63

2.75

2.03

2.1

2.97

0 1 2 3 4 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 34a: Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party traits Generation Y Thai voters refer Samak to the characteristic of Excitement the highest followed by Ruggedness and Competence. He is perceived low in the characteristic of Sophistication.

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Chart 34b: Characteristics of Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party

4.2.2.2 Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party Respondents from Bangkok In Generation Y Bangkokian voters’ opinion, the trait describing Abhisit the most is the trait of being Charming (4.10) followed by Spirited (4.06). They also think of him highly as being Intelligent (4.03), Feminine (4.00) and Reliable (3.90). From Figure 35a in Appendix III, it can be seen that his traits have not much difference comparing to one another. The characteristics that he represents the most obvious are Sophistication and Competence at the same point (3.86). The characteristic that he has the least is Sincerity (3.45) (see Figure 35b in Appendix III). Respondents from Central (Exclude Bangkok) According to the trait chart, Abhisit is perceived very high in being Feminine (4.24), Upperclass (4.20), Spirited (4.16), Confident (4.12) and Charming (4.12) respectively with not much different points. It can be seen that he is low in being Down-to-earth and Tough (3.20) (Figure 36a in Appendix III). Abhisit represents the characteristic of Sophistication (4.03) the most in the opinion of Generation Y voters in Central area and the lowest characteristic he has is Ruggedness (3.49) (Figure 36b in Appendix III).

2.46

3.03

2.59

1.83

2.89

0

1

2

3

4

5



Avg. Rating

40

Respondents from Northern region Abhisit is recognized the most as being Feminine (3.86) and Charming (3.71) in the perception of the Generation Y northern voters. He also represents the senses of being Intelligent, Upperclass and Western (3.57). He does not have the traits of being Cheerful (2.43) and Daring (2.57) (see Figure 37a in Appendix III). The characteristic suiting him best is Sophistication (3.50) followed by Competence (3.43). The lowest he has is the characteristic of Excitement (2.93) (Figure 37b in Appendix III). Respondents from Northeastern region The generation Y northeastern voters describe Abhisit as being Charming (4.23), Feminine (4.20) and Upperclass (4.17) the most obvious and they three are all in the characteristic of Sophistication. He also gives the sense of being Reliable (4.03) and Up-to-date (3.94), but he is not Down-to-earth (2.77) and rugged (2.94) in their opinion (Figure 38a in Appendix III). The characteristic of him is Sophistication (4.04) followed by Competence (3.90). The characteristic the he has the least is Ruggedness (3.18) (Figure 38b in Appendix III). Respondents from Southern region In the south, Abhisit is highly recognized in being Feminine (4.33), Spirited (4.22) and Intelligent (4.11). He is also Charming and Reliable (4.00) according to the trait chart (Figure 39a in Appendix III). The traits he has less than others are Imaginative (2.89) and Rugged (3.13). The characteristic describing him the best is Competence (3.89). He is also perceived highly in Sophistication (3.69) and Sincerity (3.67), but not Ruggedness (3.31) (Figure 39b in Appendix III). Overall in Thailand In overall Thailand, Generation Y voters describe Abhisit as being Feminine and Charming the most. Apart from that, he is also Intelligent, Upperclass and Spirited. The traits he lacks are Down-to-earth, Tough and Rugged according to the trait chart.

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3.18

3.71

3.18

3.29

3.44

4.15

4.12

4

3.89

3.67

3.95

3.92

3.77

3.31

3.99

3.48

3.28

3.74

3.77

3.02

0 1 2 3 4 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 40a: Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party traits

The characteristics to describe Abhisit the best are Sophistication and Competence, but he is recognized lowly in Ruggedness and Sincerity. However, Abhisit’s characteristics are not much different according to the Chart.

Figure 40b: Characteristics of Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party

3.45

3.643.86

3.93

3.34

0

1

2

3

4

5



Avg. Rating

42

4.2.2.3 Ideal Thai political leader Respondents from Bangkok The ideal political leader in Generation Y Bangkokian voters’ opinion must be Reliable (4.84), Honest and Wholesome (4.81). The other important traits are Spirited (4.77) and Intelligent (4.65). From the chart (Figure 41a in Appendix III) the ideal leader does not have to be Glamorous (3.26) as it has the lowest point. The characteristic of Competence (4.66) is a must for the leader to be ideal in Generation Y Bangkokian voters’ mind. Also the leader has to represent the Sincerity (4.42) and Excitement (4.41); on the other hand, Sophistication (3.79) is the least needed (Figure 41b in Appendix III). Respondents from Central (Exclude Bangkok) In the central region, the ideal party of Generation Y voters has to be highly Honest and Wholesome (4.96). Being Spirited, Reliable (4.88) and Intelligent (4.84) are also important. The least wanted is being glamorous (3.00) (Figure 42a in Appendix III). The ideal party must have the characteristic of Competence (4.69) as well as Excitement (4.56) and Sincerity (4.44). Sophistication (3.66) is not so attractive for the Generation Y voters in this region (Figure 42b in Appendix III). Respondents from Northern region To succeed in the north, a political leader has to be Spirited (4.87) the most, and then being Confident and Honest (4.71). The traits being Glamorous (2.71) and Down-to-earth (2.86) are not necessary for the northern (Figure 43a in Appendix III). The most important characteristic of a leader for Generation Y northern voters (Figure 43b in Appendix III) is Competence (4.55) followed by Excitement (4.40) and Ruggedness (4.31). The chart shows that Sophistication (3.07) does not impress much the northern voters. Respondents from Northeastern region The most important trait of the leader for the Generation Y northeastern voters is being Confident (4.71). Being Spirited (4.66) and Honest (4.60) are also important for them as well as Intelligent and Wholesome (4.54). To be an ideal for the Generation Y northeastern voters, the leader does not have to be so clear in being Glamorous (2.86) and Western (3.43) (Figure 44a in Appendix III). The characteristic influences the voters the most is Competence (4.50) and also Excitement (4.24). The sophistication (3.48) is unnecessary comparing to other characteristics (Figure 44b in Appendix III).

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Respondents from Southern region The ideal leader of the Generation Y southern voters (Figure 45a in Appendix III) has to be Reliable (4.75), Honest (4.63) and Intelligent (4.59). Apart from that, the leader is required to be Wholesome (4.57) and Confident (4.50). The less necessary traits are Charming, Feminine and Glamorous (3.13). The most important characteristic for the Generation Y southern voters is Competence (4.53). Excitement (4.25) and Sincerity (4.21) are also perceived positively. The leader is not necessary to have the characteristic of Sophistication (3.19) according to the chart (see Figure 45b in Appendix III). Overall in Thailand In the perception of Generation Y Thai voters, to be an ideal leader needs the traits of being Reliable, Spirited and Honest as the most important. It is also good to be Wholesome and Intelligent. The Generation Y Thai voters do not require the trait of being Glamorous and Down-to-earth.

4.1

3.48

4.37

3.88

3.04

3.84

3.82

3.66

4.5

4.43

4.65

4.77

4.37

4

4.76

4.39

3.84

4.7

4.75

3.82

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Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 46a: The ideal political leader traits The most important characteristic is Competence as it has the highest point overall. Excitement and Sincerity plays important rolls for the Generation Y Thai voters. Sophistication is the least needed.

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Figure 46b: Characteristics of the ideal political leader

4.2.3 Other information about election

From the question that which you choose in last election between the political party and the political leader, most respondent answer they chose the political party more than the percentage of the political leader. Respondents chose political party in 51 percent and political leader in 49 percent

4.2.4 The communication process The information from this part is gathered from part 6 the channel of communication from questionnaire to find the suitable communication way to present the political party and leader to the voter. Bangkok The result from questionnaires (Figure 47a in Appendix IV), most people in Bangkok answered that they got most political information from television 83.9%, the second channel is Billboard 80.6%, Internet 58.1%, Poster 51.6%, Brochure 41.9%, Road show 35.5%, Radio 32.3% and Speech 32.1%. From other channels that they answered are newspaper and magazines for 6.5%. According to the rating from respondents, the most influence channels of communication in Bangkok are Television and The speech 2.39, Road show 2.29, Billboard 1.94, Internet 1.9, Radio 1.77, Poster 1.74, Brochure 1.62 and others 1.2 (Figure 47b in Appendix IV) Central part (exclude Bangkok) Respondents in Central part of Thailand got the political information from Television and Billboard 79.2%, Internet 54.2%, Road show and Poster 45.8%, Brochure 41.7%,

4.284.38 4.59

3.593.96

0

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2

3

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Avg. Rating

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Speech 37.5%, Radio 33.3% and others such as newspaper and magazines for 4.2% (Figure 48a in Appendix IV). Furthermore, the most influential communication channels for voting decision (Figure 48b in Appendix IV) are Speech 2.58, Television 2.38, Road show 2.3, Internet 2.04, Billboard 1.96, Poster 1.87, Radio 1.74, Brochure 1.6.1 and others 1.3. Northern part According to the questionnaires, the results present that most voters’ age between 19 and 31 years old got the information of political parties and leaders from Television 85.7%, Billboard 71.4%, Internet 57.1%, Brochure 28.6%, Poster 17.6%, Speech and Radio 14.3% and Road Show 11.3% as Figure 49a (Appendix IV). The most influential channels are Television 2.71, Speech 2.23, Billboard 2.14, Internet 2.14, Road show 1.86, Brochure 1.57, Radio and Poster 1.43 respectively. (see Figure 49b in Appendix IV) Southern Part The respondents from Southern part of Thailand got the political information from Television 88.9%, Billboard 66.7%, Internet 55.6%, Speech 44.4%, Road show & Brochure 33.3%, Poster 22.2% and Radio 17.3% as Figure 50a (Appendix IV). According to the average rating point from questionnaires, the most influence channels of communication for voting decision in Southern part are Television 2.78, Speech 2.67, Road show 2.57, Billboard 2.25, Poster 2, Internet and Brochure 1.63 and Radio 1.5 (see Figure 50b in Appendix IV) Northeastern Part In the Northeastern part of Thailand, the political information is from Billboard 77.8%, Road show 75.3%, Speech 53.6%, Poster 50%, Television 45.3%, Radio 41.7%, Brochure 40.6%, Internet 22.2%, and others, such as newspaper for 5.6% respectively (see Figure 51a in Appendix IV). The average rating point from questionnaires for the most influential communication channels to make the vote in Northeastern are Speech 2.57, Road show 2.5, Poster 2.22, Billboard 2.03, Television 1.94, Radio 1.83, Brochure 1.8, Others 1.2 and Internet 1 respectively Figure 51b (Appendix IV). Overall Thailand According to the results from questionnaires the respondents got the political information from Television 79.2%, Billboard 78.3%, Internet 50%, Poster 47.2%, Road show 40.6%, Brochure 34%, Speech 32.1%, Radio 28.2% and others such as newspaper and magazine for 3.7% respectively.

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Channel %Television 79.2Billboard 78.3Internet 50Poster 47.2

Road show 40.6Brochure 34Speech 32.1 Radio 28.2Others 3.7

Figure 52a: The channel of communications for political marketing in Thailand

In the perception of generation Y voters from 19 – 31 years old, the most influential communication channels for the vote in Thailand are Speech 2.5, Television 2.45, , Road show 2.25, Internet 2.2, Billboard 2, Poster 1.83, Radio 1.75, Brochure 1.67 and others 1.

1

2.2

2.5

2.25

1.67

2

1.83

1.75

2.45

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Others

Internet

Speech

Roadshow

Brochure

Billboard

Poster

Radio

Television

Figure 52b: Influential channels for political communication in Northeastern

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5. Analysis


The paper first will provide the analysis of the two biggest party to see the brand personality they had in the 2007 election. In addition, the authors also have done the research on the ideal brand personality of political party from the Generation Y voters, and then we will compare the winner and the ideal as well as the one who lost in the election, the Thai Democrat Party. Generation Y voters have their specific as being open minded, skeptical and self-image, which should be remarkable for this thesis. Because, according to the brand personality theory the customers choose products, which represent themselves the most, it is appropriate to focus on the people who are strongly self-image.

5.1.1 The Parties According to the findings, this part will be organized as the flow of the previous part. First it will be the analysis of the Power People Party, the winner of the election followed by Thai Democrat Party (TDP) and then it will be the Ideal Party in the perception of Generation Y voters. 5.1.1.1 Power People Party (PPP) PPP has the highest score in Excitement, which consists of daring, spirited, imaginative and up-to-date. However, according to the questionnaires people voted PPP with the highest score on being Confident that is a trait in Competence. The Generation Y Thai voters perceive that the most important characteristic should be Competence. The PPP delivers the trait of being Confident the most obvious, which is possible to help them succeed in the 2007 election. However, from the amount of MPs in Findings part, it can be seen that PPP was not successful in Bangkok in 2007 as they have only 27 percents out of the votes. The trait charts show, that as they are perceived lowest in being Honest, the most important trait for the Generation Y Bangkokian voters, can be one of the failures. In central region PPP won 38 places, only two places more than TDP. The Generation Y voters recognize PPP as having the characteristic of Excitement, which are secondly important to the voters in the central region according to the findings. Although it is not the most important ideal characteristic, which is Competence, PPP has the nearest characteristic, as they are lowest in Sophistication, the least important one. Accordingly the party has won 40 percents of the MPs in this region, which is not so different from the TDP as the party still has not yet the clearest ideal characteristic for the central voters. In the north PPP is perceived the most as being Daring and Confident, which are exactly the traits that the Generation Y northern voters want. The party has the most

48

obvious characteristics of Excitement, the most important characteristic for the northern voters. Consequently they gained 51 percents of the MPs in the north, which is obviously successful comparing to TDP that has 20 percents from this region. For the Generation Y voters in northeastern part, the party has the highest point in being Confident, which is the most important trait in the ideal trait chart. The party is perceived as having the characteristic of Excitement the most obvious. Although they have not so high Competence according to the chart, they do not deliver the unnecessary characteristic like Sophistication. In details, they are highly confident and daring, which are also weighed a lot from the chart. Accordingly they were highly successful in this region in 2007 election by winning 74 percents of the MPS, calculated from that they have 98 MPs out of 132. At this point, with the amounts of the MPs, it can be seen that the Northeast is the biggest voting base of the PPP, which support them to construct the government. In the Generation Y Southern voters’ opinion, they are perceived as being highly Western and Glamorous, the least wanted in this region. In addition, they lowly deliver the characteristic of Sincerity, one of the most important traits in the south. As a result they won only 2 seats out of 56 in this region. In summarize of overall the country, as being recognized most in the characteristic of Excitement, the Power People Party delivers the sense of Daring, Imaginative and Up-to-date as we can see from the charge in the findings. According to the research, the party is perceived low in the category of Sophistication, which is also the lowest in the Ideal Political Party. As being high in the characteristics of Excitement, Competence and Ruggedness, and low in the Sophistication, the party approached the people successfully. One important thing they lack is the characteristic of Sincerity, which is possible to be perceived low from the influence of being the representatives of Thai Rak Thai Party and Thaksin Shinnawatra which had ruled the government and were convicted of corruption. Also the party has been in charge of the government for a while. Accordingly the performance of being a government can affect the personality. Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party The leader of PPP party who is now the Prime Minister of Thailand has been involving in Thai politics for a long time, and perceived as a seasoning politician. As a result of the research, similar to the PPP party he is perceived the highest in characteristic of Excitement. The trait that identifies him the most is also being Confident in the category of Competence. The result of the questionnaire shows that the party and the leader have compatible characteristics as they both perceived highest in the characteristic of Excitement and the trait of being Confident. As having compatible personality, the images of the party and the leader support each other and strengthen the personality. For the Generation Y Bangkokian voters, Samak is not the ideal leader as they perceive Samak as being highly Confident, Daring and Rugged, which are not the important ideal traits. They require the leader who is Reliable, Honest and Wholesome, which he has less. The important characteristics of Generation Y Bangkokian voters are Competence, Sincerity and Excitement, but Samak deliver

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Ruggedness the strongest and low in Sincerity. Moreover, the ratings that he gets from the Bangkokians are low as we can see in the charge that every characteristic are lower than 3. If comparing Samak as a product of PPP, this product cannot satisfy the Bangkokians. The fact that he has the characteristic of Excitement and Competence helps him to get more votes in this region. Moreover he has the low characteristic of Sophistication, the least necessary characteristic for the Generation Y central voters. The possible reason that decreased his popularity in this region could be that he lacks the traits of Honest and Wholesome, the two most important traits as well as the characteristic of Sincerity. In the north, the Generation Y voters perceive Samak as being Confident, Tough, and Spirited the most, which are the most important traits in the ideal traits. However, the northern voters also require the traits of being Honest and Reliable that Samak lacks. The characteristics of Samak are rated highly in Excitement and Ruggedness, which suit the ideal party in their minds following the characteristic chart. The trait that he has the highest is being Confident, which is perceived as the most wanted trait from the ideal leader. Importantly he does not have the most unwanted trait as being Feminine in the Generation Y voters in this region. The characteristic of Excitement, the second important characteristic, is what he delivers the most; in addition, he has the lowest Sophistication, the least important characteristic. Samak is perceived lowly in being Reliable, which is the most important trait of the Generation Y Southern voters. The important characteristics PPP lacks is Sincerity and Competence to attract the southern voters. Overall, the leader of PPP also has a strong point as being highly perceived as Daring and Imaginative in the characteristic of Excitement as well as Confident in competence. Comparing to the ideal leader, it shows that the Generation Y voters weigh the characteristic of Competence the most followed by the Excitement, which can be recognized in Samak Sundaravej. The present Prime Minister also gives the sense of Ruggedness from the research which obviously is in the strong type of characteristic. Furthermore, looking at the graph he represents obviously the three characteristics; Excitement, Ruggedness and Competence, since in other two characteristics, Sophistication and Sincerity, are very low. So, it can be seen that he has the strong personalities, which deliver hard to the Generation Y voters. Moreover, the most unwanted character from ideal leader is found low in his personality. In order to see the compatibility of the product and the brand, Samak as a product can deliver the brand personality of the PPP brand since they both are perceived highly in the traits of being Confident, Daring, Rugged and Imaginative. Also the characteristics of the party and the leader are rated in the same order since they both are perceived as having the characteristics of Excitement, Ruggedness, Competence, Sincerity and Sophistication respectively.

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5.1.1.2 Thai Democrat Party (TDP) The unsuccessful party in the 2007 election is recognized highest as the characteristic of Competence which is compatible to the ideal brand personality of the political party of Generation Y voters. Looking at the result of 2007 election, TDP was successful in Bangkok by gaining 26 MPs out of 36 which equals 73 percents. From the trait charts, TDP matches the ideal traits as being Spirited, Reliable and Intelligent in the Generation Y Bangkokian voters’ opinion. Moreover, if looking at the trait of being Honest, the most ideal trait, TDP has the high point as well. The party also delivers the characteristic of Competence the clearest as it is the most important characteristic in Bangkok. Consequently the TDP gained 73 percents of the votes in Bangkok. From the Central region, TDP gained 36 percents of the MPs. According to the questionnaire’s result, the party is perceived highly in being Reliable, one of the important traits. Also they represent the characteristic of Competence the most. However, they gained less than the PPP, which can be from the fact that they obviously have the characteristic of Sophistication, which is the least important for the Central voters according to the chart. In the Northern region, TDP as being perceived as highly Feminine decrease the right image according to the findings that the Feminine trait is low required from the Generation Y voters. Moreover, the party cannot give the sense of being Daring and Spirited, the important traits, to the northern voters. The party also lacks the characteristic of Excitement to attract more votes in this region. Also the party has much Sophistication, which is the least important characteristic. As a result they won 16 seats out of 77, which is 21 percents. TDP has the low wanted traits of being Feminine and Upperclass, which can be a reason that they did not gain much votes in this region. Moreover, the most obvious characteristic of TDP from the Generation Y northeastern voters is Sophistication which is the least important here. Therefore, TDP have only 6 MPs from the Northeastern region which equals only 4 percents. In addition, it seems to be a big flaw of them as this region is the biggest region and the votes from this part help the winning party to construct the government. The party is perceived as being highly Honest, Intelligent and Reliable, three of the most important ideal traits, from the Generation Y southern voters. The party is recognized as having the characteristic of Competence and Sincerity, which are the most important ideal characteristics in this region. Accordingly they were successful in the 2007 election by winning 49 seats out of 56. Overall Thailand, in details they were perceived the highest as feminine, a trait in Sophistication. Following the ideal political party, the Generation Y Thai voters take the characteristic of Sophistication as the lowest. Being perceived as Sophistication also makes it harder to approach the people and creates the feeling of unfamiliarity. TDP’s good side is being honest as it is important for the voters according to the ideal party. However, they lack the second important part which is Excitement. The

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excitement support being competence somehow as it tenses the Competences to hook the voters. Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrat Party The youngest political party at the age of 44 is perceived highest in the characteristic of Sophistication that is the lowest weigh in the ideal leader. In the same time, the other important characteristics such as Competence are found high in this leader, but the Sophistication seems to play the most important role for him. In the Generation Y Bangkokian voter’s mind, Abhisit represent the trait of being Reliable and Intelligent which are their ideal traits. Moreover, he is also perceived quite high as being Honest and Wholes, two of the most important traits for them. Moreover, the Generation Y Bangkokian voters think of the ideal leader to have characteristic of Competence which Abhisit can deliver it better than Samak. This must be the reason why the party and he gain much votes in Bangkok. In central part, Abhisit gained the votes in this region because he has the traits of being Spirited and also highly rated in being Honest. The characteristic of Sophistication, the highest characteristic he has, possibly decreased the votes from the Generation Y central voters as it is the least important characteristic. Still he is perceived highly in Competence and Excitement, the most important characteristics of the ideal leader. In the North, Abhisit is rated highly in traits of being Feminine, Charming and Upperclass which are not compatible with the important ideal leader. The characteristic of Abhisit is high in Sophistication, which is the least important characteristic in the northern region. In the Northeastern region Abhisit is perceived the highest in Charming, Feminine and Upperclass, which affect not so well to his votes since all the traits gained the lowest point. Moreover, he is recognized as having the characteristic of Sophistication, the least wanted, the most obvious. The result can be seen in the 2007 election since he gained only 4 percents of the votes in this region. From Generation Y southern voters, Abhisit is recognized as being Spirited, Reliable and Intelligent which are the important ideal traits for the southern voters. Although he is high in the characteristic of Sophistication, he represents instead higher the characteristics of Competence and Sincerity, the most important characteristics for the Generation Y southern voters. Conclusively the perception of Sophistication somehow lessens him how to approach the Generation Y voters. The trait he is identified highest is Feminine followed by Charming and Upper Class orderly. Accordingly, the person has a very high characteristic of Sophistication as his highest three traits are all in the Sophistication category. The second highest personality of Abhisit is the characteristic of competence especially the trait of Intelligent, which possibly is influenced from the educational background that he graduated from Oxford with the first honor.

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As we can see from the charge of Abhisit’s personality, the person is perceived quite high in every characteristic, which can result in the unclear personality he has. Although he has very obviously high Sophistication, his other characteristic has only few points lower. Possibly the unclear personality is the reason why he is not now the Prime Minister of Thailand. Comparing the TDP brand and Abhisit as a product, the TDP brand shows the traits of being Feminine, Honest, Confident, Intelligent, Reliable and Spirited; also, Abhisit as the product represent the traits of Feminine, Charming, Upperclass, Spirited and Intelligent. Although both have some similar traits, there are still some differences, which Abhisit shows by being Charming and Upperclass. Looking at the characteristics of the party and the leader, the party has the high characteristic of Competence as well as the leader, but Abhisit, the leader, has higher Sophistication.

5.1.2 The Ideal Party Overall Thailand, the most important trait in the opinion of Generation Y voters is being Spirited, especially in the North; moreover, the party has to focus on being Honest as it is the most important for the Generation Y voters in Bangkok, Central, and South. Being Wholesome influence the Southern voters. In addition, in order to achieve the ideal party, a party must have the traits of being Intelligent and Reliable. Afterwards, matching the traits into Aaker’s brand personality’s characteristics, the result shows that the most important characteristic in the Generation Y voters’ opinion is the Competence. Competence consists of being Reliable, Intelligent, Confident and Successful. However, the most important trait is being Spirited in the characteristic of Excitement. From this point, it can be seen that the Generation Y voters want the perspectives of Competence coming along with the Excitement. Also, the other characteristics are supportive as well, but obviously the Competence and Excitement are the most important. The Ideal Leader To be successful in the election, the party needs the right leader as the person will represent the party. Furthermore, it is necessary to have compatible brand personality along with the party. The most wanted ideal traits of Generation Y Thai voters are Reliable, Spirited and Honest. In Bangkok, Central and Southern regions, Reliable and Honest are highly valuated; on the other hand, in the North and Northeast, Generation Y voters require the traits of being Spirited. Moreover, the ideal leader needs to be Intelligent and Wholesome as well. The most wanted characteristics after including all the traits is Competence in every region. As the ideal party for the Generation Y voters is highest in characteristic of Competence, the result of the ideal leader is in the same way; the most important characteristic of the leader is Competence. The difference is the most important trait for the leader is being Reliable which both Samak and Abhisit lack. The second important is being Spirited, one trait in Excitement which is the most important trait

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for the ideal party; however, the point between being Reliable and Spirited of the ideal leader is only 0.01 point different. The research shows that the ideal party and the ideal leader of Generation Y Thai voters have the same top five traits of personality which consist of Reliable, Spirited, Honest, Wholesome and Intelligent. The difference is the rank of the importance which is also hardly different. Other Information about the 2007 election Most Generation Y voters votes based on the Party, in the other words, they got influenced mostly by the brand itself more than the product which is the leader. This can explain some incident, for examples the Southern voters voted for Abhisit although he is high in Sophistication.

5.2 Communication

5.2.1 Promotional tools and messages Power People Party Power People party used the promotional tools most in television, road show, speech and Billboard. In television, PPP use 30-second advertisement spot called ‘Happiness’ which can approach all class of people in Thailand. The spot is easy to understand and feel in the confident character like the party itself. From Findings, in Bangkok, Central, Northern and Southern, television is the main channel of communication delivering the information as well as the brand. In the Bangkok, Southern and Northern regions, television influence the voting decision. The result of questionnaire shows that billboard is the second channel that can influence the voting decision. PPP used billboards with the attractive messages as one of their biggest tool to attach people. In the Northeastern part, it is the most important channel of communication. PPP had road show and speeches of the leader in every part of Thailand and in the place that every class people can join such as the massive field for all people can do activities. In Bangkok, Central and Northeastern, Speech is the most influential tool towards the voting decision and it is the second important in the Southern part. Road shows also affect the voting decision in the same level as speeches. PPP focused on the road shows especially in Northeastern region. The main messages from Power People party, which are Create Harmony of the Nationality, Decrease income tax: remain VAT, 30 Baht Health Card, Thai Food: World Food, Sky Train: 15 Baht for every route, show the traits of Daring, Imaginative since the message show the policy of the party that daring and innovative such as 30 Bath health card to use the hospital in 30 bath price with all illness, decrease income tax and 15 baht for every route of sky train, and they show the Confident that they can do these in every speech and emphasize the message on Billboard. These messages compatible and fit with the brand personality of PPP which are Competence and Excitement and the tools for communication PPP highlight on television, speech and road show, which can express the character of the

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party and the leader to the voters. From questionnaire, the most influent channels are Television and the speech of the leader. Moreover, their most votes are from Northeastern part of Thailand that channel of communication are not in high technology so this way of communication are efficient and make them got most of the vote from people in this part. According the IMC theory ( Fill, Ch, 2005), the communication should be designed to communicate the same core message. PPP used the three communication channels to deliver the same core message which can represent their main personality which is the characteristic of Excitement. Thai Democrat Party Thai Democrat party used the highest amount of communication cost in 2007. They used Television, Billboard, Internet, Radio and Speech with business people about the economic policy. Television is the best channels of communication in Bangkok, Central, Northern and Southern, but hard to approach to the labor class and the part that not have high level of technology such as northeastern part. Moreover, TDP not focus on much on the road show that cannot express their character of competence to the people perception since the most influential channels of communication for voting decision are Road show and Speech. However, they focus on the Internet by having websites, which are separated into two styles, one formal website and another one for youngsters. Plus, the leader, Abhisit, also has his own website and a blog in Hi5, the most popular social networking website in Thailand. As a result, the result from questionnaire shows that TDP has a strong characteristic of Sophistication in Feminine trait more than Reliable and Spirited. Thai Democrat party use the main messages of invest 450,000 millions in transportation, free education, Good education, Jobs provided, lower cost of living: lower obligation, strengthen the economics to advertise their party. But these messages are hard to approach and too broad, which sound not convincing (preliminary interview). The strong characteristic of Thai Democrat party is Competence but the communications strengthen the Sophistication, which have nearly rating point with Competence. The messages are different from Power People party, which strong and confident but from TDP are more in Feminine and soft, not daring and challenge. Moreover, these messages use the multimedia channels such as television, Internet and radio, which cannot disclose to the people who live in the Northeastern part of Thailand and with labor class people. Conclusively, although TDP put an effort on having the characteristic of Competence, the promotional tools and the messages mislead to the Sophistication.

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The Ideal Party To be an ideal party in Bangkok, Central, Northern and Southern, the channel of communication which is the most effective is respectively Television, Billboard and Internet. However, in Northeastern the most effective channels are Billboard and Road show. The theme and the set of core messages used in any campaign should first be determined and then deployed as an integrated whole across the promotional mix (Fill, Ch, 2005). All messages must show, the characteristic of Competence, especially the traits of Confident, Reliable and Intelligent, not showing the characteristic of Sophistication. The channels to communicate the messages should consider in every part of Thailand and separate campaign in 5 regions.

5.2.2 Structure and Branding Power People Party PPP was found newly; however, they have the image from Thai Rak Thai party which used to be successful in two elections before withdrawn by the coup d’état. In term of brand personality, PPP shows the traits of being Confident and Daring as well as the characteristic of Competence and Excitement in the perception of Generation Y Thai voters. Along with the party’s brand personality Samak is chosen as the leader who can represent the party’s traits. According that Branding and Structure should be harmonized to create the customer relationships (Fill, Ch, 2005); PPP can create the harmony between the brand and the product. Thai Democrat Party After losing the elections lately, the oldest party of Thailand tries to restructure and re-brand the party’s image by choosing the young and abroad-educated leader as Abhisit Vejjajiva. According to the results of the questionnaires, Abhisit has a co high characteristic of Competence with the TDP, but he is highest in Sophistication. In details, the traits they share are Feminine and Intelligent, but Abhisit is also highly Upperclass and Charming, which creates the high Sophistication in his personality. Therefore, the harmony between the brand personalities of both sides cannot create an outstanding harmony.

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6. Conclusion


After investigating the twenty ideal traits and five characteristics for the political party and leader in Thailand, Generation Y Thai voters selected the most important traits for their ideal political party to be Spirited, Honest, Reliable, Wholesome and Intelligent. Spirited trait attracts the generation Y voters in Northern and Northeastern region, Honest affects Bangkok, Central (exclude Bangkok), and South region. Wholesome trait is important Southern voters most. Overall Thailand, generation Y voters selected the traits of Intelligent and Reliable for their ideal party. The characteristics of brand personality are Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. In every region, the most important characteristic for Thai generation Y voters is Competence; on the other hand, Sophistication is the least wanted characteristic. Comparing to PPP and TDP, the two biggest parties in Thai politics at present, it is found that PPP strongly shows the character of Excitement and Competence respectively, while TDP represents the characteristic of Competence and Sophistication. From last election in 2007, PPP won the election since they can achieve their personality that close to the ideal party of voters. Meanwhile, TDP shows the Sophistication strongly which is desired the least by Generation Y voters. The ideal leader of Generation Y Thai voters must have the characteristic of Competence which is ranked highest in every region. The least important characteristic is Sophistication. Overall, the traits of being Reliable, Honest and Spirited are the most significant, which is only ranked differently in each region. The result of the questionnaires shows that most of the people chose parties over leaders in the election. Therefore, it is necessary that the leader has to represent the party in term of delivering the same brand personality. The compatibility of PPP and Samak is high as he can represent the traits and characteristics. On the other hand, Abhisit’s Sophistication, the least wanted characteristic overcomes the characteristics of TDP resulting in losing the election.

6.2 Communication

The channels of communication in the elections are television, billboard, internet poster, road show, brochure, speech and radio. The questionnaires show that the communication tools from which people receive information the most are Television, Billoard, Internet and Posters respectively. Overall Television approaches people the most but in Northeast billboards are more effective. Used Messages must be matched the parties’ personality and approach every class of people. However, the channels that influence the decision of Generation Y voters the most are Speech, Television, and Road show.

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Looking at the present biggest parties, PPP focused mainly on Television, Speech and Road show, the most influential channels of communication. Moreover, their messages are short and easy to understand for people in all classes, which can represent the traits of being Confident and Daring in the characteristics of Competence and Excitement. Furthermore, the party has well harmonized the promotional tools, messages, structure and branding; as a result, they won the 2007 election. TDP, on the other hand, invested principally in Television, Internet and Speech. The problem is Internet does not approach every class of people. The advertised messages are broad and soft which cannot deliver the characteristics of Competence; moreover, the messages are complicated, which cannot be understood by all people in all classes. Therefore, Generation Y voters perceived the party as being Feminine and Upperclass, the traits in Sophistication. In addition, the promotional tools and messages cannot deliver the characteristic of Competence.

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7. Recommendation Power People Party (PPP) PPP present strongly in Excitement, the second important characteristic in generation Y voters perception. Therefore, to be the ideal party, PPP should present more the characteristic of Competence by delivering the traits of Reliable and Intelligent, since most generation Y voters perceive only Confident trait from PPP. PPP failed to gain the vote from Bangkok and Southern since the party lacks the Sincerity characteristic such as Honest, the most important trait in Bangkokian perception. PPP should use the message and spot advertisement that show the Sincerity character especially in trait of Honest and use Television and Speech channels to distribute that character. In addition, for Southern generation Y voters, PPP has high traits of Glamorous and Western. Therefore, the party should reduce the Glamorous and Western trait in Southern by using the Television, Speech and Road show, which are the most influential channels for communication in Southern region to approach the Generation Y voters. PPP brand and their product, Samak the leader of the party are compatible, so every speech and activities of Samak can convey the PPP character, so PPP and Samak should use the same core message. Hence, Samak can be used as a channel of communication to represent the brand personality in order to strengthen the perception of generation Y voters. Thai Democrat Party (TDP) TDP, who lost in the last two elections, is perceived as having the characteristic of Competence, the most important characteristic, and Sophistication, the least important characteristic, at the similar level from the Generation Y voters. Hence, they should lessen the Sophistication since it decreases the important characteristic like Competence. The trait of being Feminine should be reduced in this case, as it is the main trait of the party by adjusting their too broad message and policy to be shorter and sharper. Therefore, they will be perceived more as being Confident and Reliable leading to have more the characteristic of Competence and able to approach Generation Y voters in all classes. The party should exploit the channels of distribution they already invested, but they should deliver more the characteristic of Competence. The core messages should harmonize the Competence, which is actually the main characteristic of the party, but it was mislead to the characteristic of Sophistication because of the wrong usage of communication channel. To achieve that, they should focus on Speech and Road show to dissolve the Sophistication, especially the traits of being Feminine and Upperclass, especially in the North and Northeast. Especially TDP should focus on the Northeastern region as it is the biggest region of Thailand, which contains 34 percents of the Generation Y voters. Also this region has the biggest amount of MPs and the party obtained only six seats out of 132, which affects on winning the election.

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Ideal Party To be an ideal party for the Thai Generation Y voters, a party needs the characteristic of Competence by showing the traits of being Reliable, Intelligent and Confident. The party should not represent the Sophistication, the least wanted characteristic. In addition, the party needs a leader who can represent the similar characteristic in order to strengthen the brand personality. To approach the Generation Y voters and acknowledge them the ideal characteristics, the party should invest in advertising in the Television, Billboard and Internet since they are the most approachable channels. Meanwhile, in order to convince them, they should also focus on delivering the brand personality on Speech and Road show as they are the most influential channels.

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8. References Aaker, Jennifer L. (1997), Dimensions of brand personality, Journal of Marketing Research; 34 (3), 347 Andreasson, L. and Streling, M. (2007), Brand personality “Offline versus Online”, Bachelor thesis, Lulea University of Technology Aaker, David A. (1996), Building strong brands, The Free Press, New York

Business Tool box (n.d), retrieved March 30, 2008, from http://www.nfib.com/object/IO_18880.html

Cateora, P. and Ghauri, P. (2005), International Marketing, Mcgraw-Hill, UK

CmPrice, We Opend mind (n.d), retrieved on May 11, 2008 from http://www.weopenmind.com/board/index.php?topic=5511.msg46712 Diamantopoulos A., Smith G. and Grime I. (2007), The impact of brand extensions on brand personality: Experimental evidence, European Journal of Marketing, 33, 129-149 Department of Provincial Administration (n.d), retrieved on March 20th 2008 from http://www.dopa.go.th/

Democrat Party (n.d), retrieved May, 2008 from http://www.democrat.or.th/democrat_english/history_eng.htm

Evans, M., Jamal, A. and Foxall, G. (2006), Consumer Behaviour, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, England Fill, Chris (2005), Marketing Communications : engagement, strategies and practice, 4th edition, Pearson Education Limited, England Freling, Traci H. and Forbes, Lukas P. (2005),, An empirical analysis of the brand personality effect, Journal of Product & Brand Management 14/7 P. 404 – 413

Integrated marketing communication (n.d), retrieve March, 2008, from http://www.entarga.com/mktgplan/imc.htm

Journal of Integrated Marketing Communication (n.d.), retrieved March 20, 2008, from http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm

Karnmuang (n.d.), retrieved on May 12, 2008, from http://www.kanmuang.org/party/data/1/0004-1.html

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Lock, A. and Harris, P. (996), Political marketing, European Journal of Information Systems 30, 10 (11) Manager (n.d), retrieved on May 12, 2008, from http://www.manager.co.th/Election/ElectionTable2.aspx Murphy, John M. (1992), Branding a key marketing tool, Macmillan Accademic and Professional ltd, 2nd edition, Hampshire, England Nidambe, Political business study through the parties’ budget (n.d), retrieved on May 1, 2008, from http://www.nidambe11.net/ekonomiz/2005q1/article2005march25p6.htm Prachachat Business (n.d.), retrieved May 1,2008 from http://www.matichon.co.th/prachachat/prachachat_detail.php?s_tag=02p0105221050&day=2007-10-22&sectionid=0201 Plikpandin (n.d.), retrieved May 1, 2008, from http://plikpandin.50g.com/ Power People Party (n.d.), retrieved April 10, 2008, from http://www.ppp.or.th/index.asp

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Thailand: combating corruption through corruption reform (n.d), retrieved April, 2008, from http://aceproject.org/ero-en/topics/electoral-systems/Thailand%20Combating%20Corruption%20through%20Electoral%20Reform.doc USAtoday (n.d.), Generation Y, retrieved April 15, 2008, from http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-11-06-gen-y_x.htm

Vargas, Danny R. (2005), Integrated marketing communications- an effective comprehensive approach, Business Ventures, Fourth Quarter

Visual brand (n.d.), retrieved March 29, 2008, from http://visual-branding.com/eight-outlines/creating-a-brand-personality

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Appendix I: Questionnaire

Part 1: Profile of respondent This part is to get the background of the respondents especially classification the region of respondents. Gender

Male Female Location

Bangkok Central region (Not include Bangkok)

Northern region

Southern region Northern-east region

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Part 2: brand personality of currently Thai political parties Please make a circle around the number that you most agree with (5 = Strongly agree with, 4 = Agree with, 3 = Moderate, 2 = Disagree with, 1 = Strongly Disagree with) Down-to-earth 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Honest 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Wholesome 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Cheerful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Daring 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Spirited 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Imaginative 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Up-to-date 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Reliable 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Intelligent 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Confident 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Successful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Upper-class 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Charming 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Feminine 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Glamorous 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Outdoorsy 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Tough 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Western 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Rugged 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1


If the political party is a man, which traits do you agree with Power

People Party?

If the political party is a man, which traits do you agree with Thai

Democrat Party?

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Part 3: brand personality of currently Thai political leaders Please make a circle around the number that you most agree with (5 = Strongly agree with, 4 = Agree with, 3 = Moderate, 2 = Disagree with, 1 = Strongly disagree with) Down-to-earth 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Honest 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Wholesome 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Cheerful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Daring 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Spirited 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Imaginative 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Up-to-date 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Reliable 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Intelligent 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Confident 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Successful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Upper-class 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Charming 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Feminine 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Glamorous 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Outdoorsy 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Tough 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Western 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Rugged 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1


Which traits do you agree with Samak

Sundoravej the leader of Power People Party?

Which traits do you agree with Abhisit

Vejjajiva the leader of Thai Democrat Party?

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Part 4: The ideal brand personality of currently Thai political parties and leaders Please make a circle around the number that you most agree with (5 = Strongly agree with, 4 = Agree with, 3 = Moderate, 2 = Disagree with, 1 = Strongly disagree with) Down-to-earth 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Honest 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Wholesome 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Cheerful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Daring 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Spirited 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Imaginative 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Up-to-date 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Reliable 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Intelligent 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Confident 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Successful 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Upper-class 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Charming 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Feminine 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Glamorous 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Outdoorsy 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Tough 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Western 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 Rugged 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1



your ideal political party?


your ideal political leader?

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Part 5: Other information about the election What most influent your decision to make a vote?

Political Party The leader of party

Part 6: The channel of communication 1. Which channel did you get the information of political parties and the leaders of those parties? (Can answer more than one choice)

Television Radio Internet

Billboard Brochure Poster

Speech of the leader Road show Others

2. Which channel influent your voting decision? (Please √ for the level of significance of the channels of communication)

Channels of communication

Level of significance

Most important

Moderate Less important

1. Television

2. Radio

3. Internet

4. Billboard

5. Brochure

6. Poster

7. Speech of the leader

8. Road show

9. Others …………………………….

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Appendix II: Brand personality of the Parties

Power People Party

1. Respondents from Bangkok

3.27

2.76

2.78

2.86

2.62

1.95

2.16

2.43

3.57

2.59

2.68

1.97

2.92

3.27

2.95

3.46

2.3

2.05

1.84

2.38

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 11a: PPP’s traits of brand personality in Bangkok

2.14

3.15

2.702.29

2.92

0

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 11b: PPP’s characteristics of brand personality in Bangkok

68

2. Respondents from Central (Excluding Bangkok)

l

3.31

2.59

3

3.33

2.93

1.93

2.07

2.81

3.93

2.85

2.67

1.96

3.19

3.59

3.04

3.63

2.37

2.04

1.85

2.37

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 12a: PPP’s traits of brand personality in Centra

2.16

3.36

3.00

2.44

3.06

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 12b: PPP’s characteristics of brand personality in Central

69

3. Respondents from Northern region

4

2.43

3.43

3.29

2.71

1.71

2.14

2.57

4.14

3.29

3.29

2.29

3.43

3.14

3.86

4.14

2.86

2

1.86

2.57

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 13a: PPP’s traits of brand personality in Northern region

2.32

3.64

3.25

2.28

3.29

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 13b: PPP’s characteristics of brand personality in Northern region

70

4. Respondents from Northeastern region

3.26

2.9

3

3.18

2.9

1.82

2.26

2.72

3.79

2.79

2.95

2.23

3.18

3.18

3.13

3.46

2.92

2.03

1.87

2.44

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 14a: PPP’s traits of brand personality in Northeastern region

2.32

3.24

2.94

2.43

3.09

2

3

4

5


Figure 14b: PPP’s characteristics of brand personality in Northeastern region

71

5. Respondents from Southern region

2.8

3.5

2.6

2.6

3.4

2

2

2.56

3.9

3.1

2.8

2

3.1

2.8

2.9

3.1

2.3

2

1.8

2

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 15a: PPP’s traits of brand personality in Southern region

2.03

2.982.95

2.49

2.88

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 15b: PPP’s characteristics of brand personality in Southern region

72

Thai Democrat Party


3.16

2.84

3.3

3.24

3

3.46

3.41

3.41

3.57

3.27

3.46

3.46

2.95

2.89

3.54

3.19

2.78

3.35

3.32

3.14

2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 17a: TDP’s traits of brand personality in Bangkok

3.15 3.14

3.44

3.32

3.14

2

3

4

5


Figure 17b: TDP’s characteristics of brand personality in Bangkok

73

2. Respondents from Central

3.41

3.15

3.26

3.37

3.04

3.7

3.33

3.63

3.7

3.19

3.63

3.78

3

3.11

3.85

3.56

2.89

3.41

3.56

3.44

2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 18a: TDP’s traits of brand personality in Central

3.33

3.38

3.583.43

3.30

2

3

4

5


Figure 18b: TDP’s characteristics of brand personality in Central

74


2.29

1.71

2.43

2.57

2.14

3.57

3

2.57

2.29

2.71

2.14

2.86

2.29

2.71

2.43

2.43

2.29

2.57

2.86

3.43

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 19a: TDP’s traits of brand personality in Northern region

2.79

2.47

2.50

2.82

2.25

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 19b: TDP’s characteristics of brand personality in Northern region

75


2.77

2.79

2.95

2.77

2.82

3.77

3.02

3.3

3.03

2.95

3.21

3.38

2.85

2.82

3.23

2.74

2.67

3.23

3.28

3.33

2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 20a: TDP’s traits of brand personality in Northeastern region

3.13

2.91

3.143.23

2.82

2

3

4

5


Figure 20b: TDP’s characteristics of brand personality in Northeastern region

76


2.9

2.5

3.1

2.9

2.5

3.5

3.3

3.1

3.8

3.7

4

3.9

2.8

2.8

3.7

3.2

2.6

3.8

4.1

3.6

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 21a: TDP’s traits of brand personality in Southern region

3.53

3.13

3.93

3.102.85

2

3

4

5


Figure 21b: TDP’s characteristics of brand personality in Southern region

77

Ideal Political Party


3.92

2.95

4.43

3.84

2.65

3.86

3.59

3.49

4.3

4.41

4.62

4.73

4.43

3.89

4.7

4.38

3.57

4.62

4.76

3.84

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 23a: Ideal political party traits for Generation Y voters in Bangkok

4.20

4.35

4.52

3.40

3.79

2

3

4

5


Figure 23b: Ideal political party characteristic for Generation Y voters in Bangkok

78

2. Respondents from Central

3.96

3.36

4.25

3.57

2.82

3.71

3.54

3.39

4.36

4.57

4.86

4.75

4.57

3.75

4.93

4.21

3.79

4.93

4.96

3.46

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 24a: Ideal political party traits for Generation Y voters in Central

4.29

4.37

4.64

3.37

3.79

2

3

4

5


Figure 24b: Ideal political party characteristic for Generation Y voters in Central

79


4.45

3.14

4.65

4.43

2.29

3.29

3.29

3.29

4.71

4.14

4.29

4.57

4.57

3.57

4.86

4.74

3.57

4.14

4.43

3.71

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 25a: Ideal political party traits for Generation Y voters in Northern region

3.96

4.444.43

3.04

4.17

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00


Figure 25b: Ideal political party characteristic for Generation Y voters in Northern region

80


3.79

3.26

4.15

3.85

2.56

3.46

3.41

3.38

4.64

4.18

4.33

4.37

4.03

3.54

4.64

4.15

3.41

4.38

4.13

3.62

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 26a: Ideal political party traits for Generation Y voters in Northeastern region

3.89

4.09

4.38

3.20

3.76

2

3

4

5


Figure 26b: Ideal political party characteristic for Generation Y voters in Northeastern region

81


3.56

2.67

3.89

3.56

2.56

3.33

2.67

3.11

4.22

4.42

4.53

4.44

4.33

3.56

4.56

4.22

3.22

4.67

4.56

4

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 27a: Ideal political party traits for Generation Y voters in Southern region

4.11

4.17

4.40

2.92

3.42

2

3

4

5


Figure 27b: Ideal political party characteristic for Generation Y voters in Southern region

82

Appendix III: Brand personality of the Leader

Samak Sundaravej of Power People Party


3.35

2.16

2.87

2.74

2.06

1.52

1.9

2.03

3.87

2.03

2.1

1.9

2.03

2.97

2.61

3.48

2.39

2.06

2

2.94

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 29a: Samak’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Bangkokian voters

2.35

2.77

2.48

1.88

2.78

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 29b: Samak’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Bangkokian voters

83


3.32

1.96

3.08

3.04

1.96

1.6

1.8

2.24

4.12

2.32

2.24

2.04

2.52

3.2

3.2

3.8

2.76

2.2

2.28

3.2

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 30a: Samak’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Central voters

2.61

3.18

2.68

1.90

2.85

1

2

3

4

5


Figure309b: Samak’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Central voters

84


4

2

3.71

3.29

1.86

1.14

1.57

2.14

4.29

2.57

2.57

1.57

2.57

3.29

3.43

3.71

3.14

1.71

2

2.86

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 31a: Samak’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Northern voters

2.43

3.25

2.75

1.68

3.25

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 31b: Samak’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Northern voters

85


3.57

2.14

3.03

2.97

1.71

1.46

1.77

1.94

3.83

2.31

2.23

2.06

2.29

3.34

3.09

3.74

3

1.91

2.09

2.94

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 32a: Samak’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Northeastern voters

2.49

3.12

2.61

1.72

2.93

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 32b: Samak’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Northeastern voters

86


3.63

2.56

2.33

2.67

1.89

1.67

1.67

2.33

4

1.89

2.11

1.89

2.67

2.78

2.62

3.22

2.44

2

2

2.44

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 33a: Samak’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Southern voters

2.22

2.82

2.47

1.89

2.80

1

2

3

4

5


Figure 33b: Samak’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Southern voters

87

Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thai Democrats Party


3.45

3.61

3.35

3.52

3.45

4

4.1

3.87

3.84

3.65

4.03

3.9

3.71

3.42

4.06

3.68

3.39

3.68

3.71

3.03

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 35a: Abhisit’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Bangkokian voters

3.45

3.72

3.86 3.86

3.48

3.00

4.00

5.00


Figure 35b: Abhisit’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Bangkokian voters

88


3.32

4.04

3.2

3.4

3.56

4.24

4.12

4.2

4.12

3.6

4

3.92

3.8

3.56

4.16

3.92

3.6

4

4.08

3.2

2.5 2.7 2.9 3.1 3.3 3.5 3.7 3.9 4.1 4.3 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 36a: Abhisit’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Central voters

3.72

3.863.91

4.03

3.49

2

3

4

5


Figure 36b: Abhisit’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Central voters

89


2.71

3.57

2.71

2.86

2.86

3.86

3.71

3.57

3.43

3.29

3.57

3.43

3

2.86

3.29

2.57

2.43

3.43

3.57

2.71

2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 37a: Abhisit’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Northern voters

3.04

2.93

3.433.50

2.96

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00


Figure 37b: Abhisit’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Northern voters

90


2.94

3.63

3.03

3.11

3.57

4.2

4.23

4.17

3.91

3.76

3.89

4.03

3.94

3.2

3.89

3.2

3.14

3.66

3.6

2.77

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 38a: Abhisit’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Northeastern voters

3.29

3.56

3.90

4.04

3.18

2

3

4

5


Figure 38b: Abhisit’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Northeastern voters

91


3.13

3.44

3.44

3.22

3

4.33

4

3.44

3.67

3.78

4.11

4

3.67

2.89

4.22

3.33

3.22

3.89

3.9

3.67

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 38a: Abhisit’s traits in the perception of Generation Y Southern voters

3.673.53

3.89

3.69

3.31

2

3

4

5


Figure 39b: Abhisit’s characteristics in the perception of Generation Y Southern voters

92

Ideal Thai Political Leader


4.13

3.35

4.35

3.77

3.26

4.03

4

3.87

4.55

4.58

4.65

4.84

4.39

4.03

4.77

4.45

3.94

4.81

4.81

4.1

3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 41a: Ideal political leader’s traits for Generation Y Bangkokians

4.424.41

4.66

3.79

3.90

2

3

4

5


Figure 41b: Ideal political leader’s characteristics for Generation Y Bangkokians

93


4.04

3.52

4.36

3.72

3

4.04

4

3.6

4.48

4.56

4.84

4.88

4.72

4.16

4.88

4.48

4.04

4.96

4.96

3.8

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 42a: Ideal political leader’s traits for Generation Y in Central

4.44

4.56

4.69

3.66

3.91

2

3

4

5


Figure 42b: Ideal political leader’s characteristics for Generation Y Central region

94


4.57

3.71

4.68

4.29

2.71

3.14

3.14

3.29

4.79

4.14

4.57

4.71

4.29

3.86

4.87

4.59

3.71

4.14

4.71

2.86

2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 43a: Ideal political leader’s traits for Generation Y in Northern region

3.86

4.40

4.55

3.07

4.31

2

3

4

5


Figure 43b: Ideal political leader’s characteristics for Generation Y Northern region

95


4.06

3.43

4.29

3.97

2.86

3.74

3.74

3.57

4.71

4.29

4.54

4.44

4.17

3.83

4.66

4.31

3.66

4.54

4.6

3.71

2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 44a: Ideal political leader’s traits for Generation Y in Northeastern region

4.13

4.24

4.50

3.48

3.94

2

3

4

5

Sincerity Excitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness Figure 44b: Ideal political leader’s characteristics for Generation Y Northeastern region

96


4.13

3.5

4.13

3.63

3.13

3.13

3.13

3.38

4.5

4.29

4.59

4.75

4.25

4.38

4.38

4

3.38

4.57

4.63

4.25

3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Rugged

Western

Tough

Outdoorsy

Glamorous

Feminine

Charming

Upperclass

Confident

Successful

Intelligent

Reliable

Up-to-date

Imaginative

Spirited

Daring

Cheerful

Wholesome

Honest

Down-to-earth

Figure 45a: Ideal political leader’s traits for Generation Y in Southern region

4.214.25

4.53

3.19

3.85

3

4

5


Figure 45b: Ideal political leader’s characteristics for Generation Y Southern region

97

Appendix IV: The communication channels Bangkok

Channel %Television 83.9Billboard 80.6Internet 58.1Poster 51.6

Brochure 41.9Road show 35.5

Radio 32.3Speech 32.1Others 6.5

Figure 47a: The channel of communications for political marketing in Bangkok

1.2

1.9

2.39

2.29

1.62

1.94

1.74

1.77

2.39

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Others

Internet

Speech

Roadshow

Brochure

Billboard

Poster

Radio

Television

Figure 47b: Influential channels for political communication in Bangkok

98

Central part (exclude Bangkok)

Channel %Television 79.2Billboard 79.2Internet 54.2

Road show 45.8Poster 45.8

Brochure 41.7Speech 37.5Radio 33.3Others 4.2

Figure 48a: The channel of communications for political marketing in Central

1.3

2.04

2.58

2.3

1.61

1.96

1.87

1.74

2.38

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Others

Internet

Speech

Roadshow

Brochure

Billboard

Poster

Radio

Television

Figure 48b: Influential channels for political communication in Central

99

Northern Region

Channel %Television 85.7Billboard 71.4Internet 57.1

Brochure 28.6Poster 17.6Speech 14.3Radio 14.3

Road show 11.3Others 0

Figure 49a: The channel of communications for political marketing in Northern region

0

2.14

2.23

1.86

1.57

2.14

1.43

1.43

2.71

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Others

Internet

Speech

Roadshow

Brochure

Billboard

Poster

Radio

Television

Figure 49b: Influential channels for political communication in Northern region

100

Southern Region

Channel %Television 88.9Billboard 66.7Internet 55.6Speech 44.4

Road show 33.3Brochure 33.3

Poster 22.2Radio 17.3Others 0

Figure 50a: The channel of communications for political marketing in Southern region

0

1.63

2.67

2.57

1.63

2.25

2

1.5

2.78

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Others

Internet

Speech

Roadshow

Brochure

Billboard

Poster

Radio

Television

Figure 50b: Influential channels for political communication in Southern region

101

Northeastern Part

Channel %Billboard 77.8

Road show 75.3Speech 53.6 Poster 50

Television 45.3Radio 41.7

Brochure 40.6Internet 22.2Others 5.6

Figure 51a: The channel of communications for political marketing in Northeastern region

1.2

1

2.57

2.5

1.8

2.03

2.22

1.83

1.94

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Others

Internet

Speech

Roadshow

Brochure

Billboard

Poster

Radio

Television

Figure 51b: Influential channels for political communication in Northeastern region

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