Thailand Youth Essay

THis is my essay I wrote for my youth culture class, if anyone has my essay on the phillipines from when I took Global Popular Culture with jeremy Wallach please send it to me, I have no digital copy. Also I took Youth Culture with Montana Miller at Bowling Green State University.
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Thailand Youth Culture

POPC

Youth Culture

Alex Merced

The Thailand Youth – A Marketers Perspective

After watching the documentary about the CoolHunters I became curious as how youth are approached by marketers in different cultures. Thailand culture is a heavily commercialized culture due to it being a popular tourist spot so I want to see how this effects the youth by seeing what trends marketing research has shown on Thailand youth. I will take a look at how marketers group Thailand youth, the attitudes of Thailand youth, and explore the cultural context of these trends work in the greater scope of Thailand culture.

“Western culture in the form of MTV and Hollywood movies delivered through satellite TV has been a major influence on youth culture, though MTV features local pop stars and culture to a significant extent. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is a stalwart against the inroads of "western culture", seeing it publicly as a threat to "Asian values" but specifically to those of respect for elders and political authority. He even went so far to call Japanese "blondes" for their slavish pursuit of US culture. Part of the Malaysian and Singapore problem however is due to the lack of support for a local youth pop culture, leaving teens with no option other than Western models to express their individuality and youthful values. A thriving Bumi-Rock music genre, highlighting an original, indigenous and Malay based culture was throttled in its nascent years, leaving local Malaysian youth venues crowded with Western pop cover bands, including imports from the Philippines.” - AsiaMarketResearch.com

This is an excerpt from, “Thai Teens Get Serious: New Market Research on Thailand Youth Market “. (asiamarketresearch.com) This article really sets up the dilemma in Asian Pop Cultures interactions with the western media, the article continues to talk about how Thailand actually has it's own thriving Pop scene it's media culture is strong compared to many other Asian countries that have more reliance to western or Japanese imports. With such a strong commercial culture which implies a strong consumer base we see the need for market info on the youth market, like it said in the CoolHunters documentary, this market has a lot of time and disposable income. This article then takes a look at a survey conducted by the Thailand Marketing Research Society which had many results and broke Thailand youth in different groups. The first group this essay breaks the market into is the liberal market which is defined by being open sexually and being an innovator when it come to new things always trying to be trying what's new and original. Next one is the individualist who doesn't care about western values, spends little money, and takes care of their parents. The Follower is conservative to sex issues and withdraws from leadership positions. The final one is the Image Seeker who admires western culture, who's image and status is important to them and is influenced by advertising. As a marketing minor I would assume that the image seeker would be who I'd set my marketing sights on, but that's relative to what I'm marketing. Although this break-up is similar to the archetype of the Mook and Mid-drift that the CoolHunters documentary talked about. I go back and forth on how accurate archetypes can be, I guess like anything else you can take a layered approached that a person is a several pronged being. Archetypes can accurately describe certain layers of a person enough to generalize but there is always more details in context relative to still leave room to a lot of local and social context.

“The Thai youth market shares some common characteristics with other Asian and Western youth markets. Yet there are some major differences. Thai youth are perhaps the most fashionable of certainly their neighbors and perhaps most of Asia. The Thai advertising industry produces some of the most creative promotions in Asia, despite budgets that are extremely low. Thai youth attitudes are affected by the same Buddhist religious and national culture that pervades Thailand generally. In comparison to Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism, this culture encourages individualism, youthful idealism and tolerance and respect for divergent views. It also shares the respect for age and family. At the same time however, it is conservative - embracing change, ...but cha cha.. (slowly.. slowly..)” - Asian Pacific Management News

This segue from an Article by Asian Pacific Management Newswhich analyzes research from ACNielson one of the largest global marketing research firms which is the same company that gathers information for television ratings. Again in this articles it really emphasizes the difference of Thailand consumer culture in the scope of the global market. (Asian Pacific Mangement News) The ACNielson research was on the attitudes of the youth market in Thailand and found several interesting things. They found while adults found economic issues such as debt and education a struggle Teens are more focused on collecting brands and dressing fashionably. The Fashion Center for Thailand is Japan taking many of it's fashion influences from Japan and from Thailand rich Pop Music scene. Other interesting attitudes shown of the youth is that they are more health and education consciousness but do not save money or understand the concept of saving money. What makes this research very interesting is that it doesn't break the youth into archetypes but more so talk about the trends in youth thought after a recent recession in Thailand.

In Both of these articles a very interesting cultural context is discussed that should be highlighted to further enhance the findings in both of these articles. Some of the cultural trends that these articles bring to light are many changes that similar to those in western culture such as greater variety of education options, more equality in marriage in relationships, and more skeptical view of the status quo. Similar to the US over the last few years Thailand has been dealing with the aftermath of economic recessions. The articles both mention the difference in influence on Thailand culture while still influenced by imports from the west and Japan, Thailand still has a very independent pop culture of it's own which seems to stem from it's pop music which both articles seem to mention.

Thailand has very interesting youth market that is very appealing to marketers such as the CoolHunters. It's the fashionable youth with disposable income from raises in low level jobs and generous parent allowances that make them the perfect prey for a commercial onslaught, very similar to the US teen market. Thailand retains it's individuality with it's rich Pop music scene yet is influenced by student that study abroad and Japan. While most these teens would fall into the Image Seeker archetype there are still the individualist who resist the commercial culture and focus on family values, and many other archetypes. Thailand is land of commercial contestation, mainly among the youth from Fashion to Mtv, Thailand has got it too.

Works Cited

AsiaMarketResearch.com. “Thai Teens get serious: New Market Research on the Thailand Youth Market”. Asia Market Research. November 11, 2002. April 14, 2007. http://www.asiamarketresearch.com/news/000258.htm.

Asian Pacific Management News. “Thai Youth Attitudes – Thailand Market Research”. Asian Pacific Management News. May 11^th, 2000. April 14^th, 2007. http://www.apmforum.com/news/ap110500.htm