Communication strategy for conservation of Thai food product : a case study of Moo-Naem

Abstract

The study of Communication strategy for conservation of thai food product : a case study of Moo-Naem consisted of three objectives. 1) To add value to Moo-Naem and communicate the value to its customer; 2) To encourage people to perceive the value of Moo-Naem and purchase Moo-Naem; and 3) To use communication strategy as a tool to conserve Moo-Naem as the traditional and cultural cuisine. Two methodologies were utilized: 1) questionnaire surveys in which the population of the study is the people who lived in Bangkok, Thailand. Simple random sampling method was applied and self-administrated written in Thai and English were used for collecting the data. The sample of the study was 402 people. The questionnaire used a five-level Likert scale from the strongly agreed to the strongly disagreed.; and 2) in-depth interviews which were conducted with who are experts, have experiences, work about Moo-Naem, work in cuisine fields, and work in advertising and communication fields for a total 6 people. There are 2 types of statistics utilized in this research. Descriptive statistics included frequency, percentage, means, standard deviation. The data from interview questions will be analysed and presented by the tables for information. For the inferential statistics used to test the hypothesis includes t-test, analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA), and chi-square. Coefficients were tested under 5% significance.

The finding revealed that the respondents are male (50%) and female (50%) equally and the most respondents age between 31-40 years old (35.1%), had a bachelor’s degree (57.2%), work at private sector (53%), and had monthly income 20,001-30,000 Baht (28.6%). Most of the respondents knew and had ever eaten Moo-Naem. In their opinions, people who do not know Moo-Naem is because of the lack of information. After the respondents know Moo-Naem and its value, they would like to try. In terms of opinions towards the reason why Moo-Naem has to be conserved, the results are that Moo-Naem is rare, interesting, thai tradition and cultures, and including royal tradition. The value or significance of Moo-Naem are great teste, delicately cooked method, healthy and valuable ingredients, and represent the identity of thai royal cuisine. The significance of conservation is identity, value of royal thai cuisine, and taste. The best way to influence people to conserve Moo-Naem and the effective communication way for Moo-Naem conservation, the opinions of respondents are similar which are advertising including via online or television, promotion including sale promotion, providing sampling, special events, using viral promotion and celebrity in media. For the Media strategy, the respondents had strongly agreed on packaging, retail sign, television, and websites for all of three objectives. For the Message strategy, the respondents had strongly agreed for taglines and logo of messages that drive perception; point of differentiation, interesting product characteristic, and news announcement of messages that drive cognition; food appeal, pleasure appeal, health appeal, appetite appeal, price appeal, and novelty appeal of message that persuade; brand image of messages that transform a product into brand; viral message and sales promotion of message that drive action; and informational messages, demonstration, and teaser of messages approaches. For the Message strategy, the respondents had somewhat agreed for a commercial to look like a tv show of messages that touch emotion.

The author suggested that for the new producer who would like to start up the thai traditional cuisine which similar to Moo-Naem should be used the communication strategy as follows: 1) to use informational message, point the differentiation, and demonstration; 2) to persuade the customer use pleasure, health, price, and food appeal; 3) send the message by packaging, retail sign, TV, and websites; and 4) make the message to be viral and provide sales promotion. The future scope is that the research can be further in national level or increase the number of interviewee to get more variety of opinions.