When considering the history of Singha, it is clear to see that Singha has learned several lessons from the socioeconomic transitions (as established since 1933), especially the epic battle ‘Singha VS Chang beer’ (Siripai, 2007; The Manager News, 2011a; 2011b) . (See the comparison chapter Singha VS Chang). The battle happened between 1996-1998 during the Thai economic recession known as the ‘Tom Yum Kung’ crisis (Prachachatthurakit News, 2009). Figuratively, it is argued that there was a competition between two masculine archetypes: Singha - ‘elite man’ - VS Chang - ‘local man’. The battle forced Singha to adapt to social and economic changes, due to global and local transformations as this economic crisis affected and ultimately, it could be argued, changed consumer lifestyles (such as sensitivity to price). This period allowed a new cheaper beer, Chang, to emerge onto the Thai alcohol-beer market (Siripai, 2007; Chaninya, 2009). Unfortunately, due to the premium image of Thai’s oldest beer, with an image relating to the elite Thai middle class man (Louiyapong, 1996), Singha had lost its overall market share to Chang beer by 2003, and was left with approximately 24% of the overall market share. Prior to the emergence of Chang beer, Singha used to dominate the Thai beer market with some 80-90% of the market share (Damrongsoontornchai, 2013). Chang was promoted as the hope for the future of ‘grassroots’ or people in rural areas, which
was a mass market - a low but prestigious image with a cheap price (Treerat, 2007; The Manager News, 2011). Chang used the Thai rock brand Carabao, promoting the campaign of Thai nationalism, which the majority of population could access, as it was one of the most popular Thai rock-country bands for lower class people in Thailand (Cayla and Eckhardt, 2008). Cayla and Eckhardt (2008) argued that: ‘…Chang Beer… proudly articulates a national identity [promoting the brand]… Chang appeared during the economic crisis of 1998 and it signified the hope for the future. [While] Singha was destroyed almost overnight because it signified the past… Chang Beer illustrates the emphasis on the future… The brand has relied heavily on Thai rock band Carabao singing about the “authentic Thailand” of rural areas and farmers to reinforce its position as the truly Thai beer’ (p.222). In other words, regarding the evidence in this thesis, this implication represented the Chang brand image of Thai Nationalist man, who loves and is proud of the nationhood (see Chapter 7).
It took nearly a decade for Singha to re-establish itself and to become a market leader again in the Thai alcohol/beer market. By re-branding and strategising, it had almost 50% of the market share by 2007, and about 60% in 2011 (Euromonitor International, 2013a). (See Figure 5.2)
Figure 5.2 The chart demonstrates the comparison in sell volumes between Singha and Chang during 1995- 2009 (B.E. 2539-2552)
Source by: Singha Corporation Co, Ltd.
Indeed, the globalisation of the free market broadened the visions of the dominant Thai brands to a more global outlook. The evidence in this thesis found that Singha already occupies overall dominance in the Thai alcohol beer market with its strong Thai masculine brand identity leading to broader consumer loyalty and widespread popularity in a domestic context. Singha currently exports globally and has tended to pay attention to the regional and global market in recent times, especially the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Of key significance is that an elite
Thai male image is used to promote the brand locally - ‘local consumer culture positioning’ - and the extension of the elite male image is also employed to market the product globally in an example of ‘global consumer culture positioning’ (Alden et al., 1999; Cayla and Eckhardt, 2008). The Singha MD, C. Wiratyosin, stressed the challenges of moving from the domestic market to a global market once the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) officially opens. He said that:
‘...Today, I have 60 million customers in Thailand, but after we begin the Asian Economic Community (AEC), the number of customers will become 600 million. We have to plan how to get in touch with these people. This does not yet include Singha’s existing market. It is challenging that there are many changes to the world and we have to adapt ourselves to these changes.’
At present, Singha’s overall company sales are ranked in the top six in Asia, with a longer term goal of being in the top three (Thunyawat chaitrakulchai, 2010; The Manager News, 2011b). However, to examine Singha’s success in the global marketplace is conjecture and beyond the scope of this thesis and more research is needed to examine the progression of local to global brand. The difficulty is how Singha moves from marketing that is highly dependent on Thai symbols of masculinity towards a more international market where such symbols might not have symbolic purchase with the audience.
Arguably, the success of Singha is also dependant on trends in global consumer culture, arising from the Western norm, in the forms of cultural imperialism due to the globalisation development of transnational neoliberal markets (Ritzer, 1993; Cayla and Eckhardt, 2008). As Alden et al. (1999) emphasised: ‘globalisation is a relatively recent phenomenon that affords marketing managers new opportunities as well as threats. One opportunity is the growth of global consumer segments that associate similar meanings with certain places, people, and things. Paralleling the growth of global segments is the emergence of global consumer cultures, shared sets of consumption-related symbols (product categories, brands, consumption activities, and so forth) that are meaningful to segment members. Mass media programming, flowing primarily from the United States, has played a major role in the creation, learning, and sharing of such consumption symbols’ (p.75). As a consequence, it is evident that the emergence of global markets has encouraged Thai alcohol manufacturers to adopt sophisticated global marketing trends and branding approaches, such as the use of various marketing communications or a so-called Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) approach, to reach most consumers’ points of contact to the brands. More specifically, this is clearly exemplified by Singha in their adoption and execution of the sophisticated advertising and
branding approach (Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Schmitt, 2000; Douglas B. Holt, 2003b; Douglas B. Holt et al., 2004). For example; Singha has uniquely constructed the ideal images of Thai masculinity(ies), by basing on the traditional values of Thainess (love nation, Buddhism, and the king). Alongside this, evidence in this thesis also shows that Singha exploited the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) technique for brand promotions, trying to reach all the contact points within the targets, such as employing music and sport to let consumers access the Singha brand experience (The Manager News, 2011a; Belch et al., 2012; O'Guinn and Semenik, 2012). As indicated in the previous chapter, music and sport activities has become as a means to build up the (masculine) brand awareness and experience, with the target consumers.
The most potent example of this is in the ‘Singha: the brave hearted men, the fighting men, campaign’ that sponsored Manchester United and Chelsea, English Premier League football clubs, while integrating TV commercials, promotional activities and public relations. It is argued that these modes of communication symbolically promoted a ‘masculine’ character of the Singha brand identity. Certainly, Singha spent a huge amount of money on advertising and branding to consistently reach the widest target audiences, affirmed by the Singha MD, C. Wiratyosin, who admitted:
‘…we don’t deny that we spend considerable amounts of money - over 1,000 million Thai Baht (about £18.18 million) each year- on advertising and branding to remain the most popular brand of our target consumers.’
Furthermore, he confirmed that social media might be the future for Singha brand promotions to keep pace with the changes in consumer lifestyles (Mangold and Faulds, 2009; Asur and Huberman, 2010). It is considered that the new communication channels could be accessible to consumers individually in order to buy into the masculinities that were promoted by and through Singha beer since the current legislation concerning on the alcohol advertisements has not covered the internet/social media yet.
Therefore, there is a gap between the regulation of advertising on television and online. This gap means that the social media/internet channel will allow Singha to contact the target directly. Thus, Singha employ internet bloggers/ web pages to promote the brand, spread the news, as viral marketing on the internet about Singha's activity aimed at the target. The Singha MD stressed that:
‘…If you use the internet channel, you will have the exact group of audience. You can also have a group of audience from TV. Asked if TV is the most important media, I think not. You can check viewers of some online series, bloggers, and web pages. They made quite a high impact. It may be a lot more than a free TV drama on TV. Like… the Gangnam Style music video was watched by 4-5 billion viewers on YouTube. That is more than the American population. So you do not need to reconcile TV, but you have to know how to use the media and how to communicate to the audience.’
This perspective of the Singha MD, C. Wiratyosin, confirmed that the internet and social media would be the potential media channel to communicate with the target audience in the future. Noticeably, to promote the brand on social media could benefit Singha in several ways, for instance: customer relationship management in real time, building brand awareness and loyalty directly to the target audiences (Mangold and Faulds, 2009; Nicholls, 2012). Posting on social media could be repeated often, and interactions with target audiences happen in real time, which would benefit the brand in terms of providing reminders. Therefore, the scope of Singha needs to be contextualised. ‘Singha’ refers to a product brand name, a corporate company brand name, and covers the sales volume term of the entire Singha alcohol brand portfolio which are; Singha, Leo, and Thai beer (Chaitrakulchai, 2010; The Manager News 2011a; 2011b, Euromonitor International, 2012; 2013a; 2013b;).
Evidence seems to suggest that Singha is regarded as a dominant brand, representing masculine constructions in association with sophisticated Thai identities in their advertisements (Louiyapong, 1996). Furthermore, Singha is socially recognised as part of the Thai cultural mythology, as a result of the longevity7 of the brand itself in Thai society and culture (Sinsuwan, 2012). The ideology in Thai culture of ‘Thainess’ is incorporated into the advertising and branding of Singha. Thainess and Thai culture are significantly influenced by the Thai holy trinity, which are: Nation, Religion (Buddhism), and the Monarchy (The King) (Jorgensen, 1995a; Jory, 1999). As Jorgensen (1995) noted: the three pillars of Thai national identity are ‘inseparable from culture, and this identity is based on the ‘holy trinity’ of Nation, Religion, and King (Chad Sassana Pramahakasat in Thai). These principles, a mutually reinforcing triad known as Lak Thai (love Thai) codify the official Thai identity and provide one another with mutual support, protection, and/or legitimation’ (Jorgensen, 1995, p.34). Correspondingly, Niels Mulder (1985) argued about the Thai national identity occurring in everyday life in Thailand: ‘in the Thai national “civic” ideology of Nation (the encompassing ritual community), Religion (common ritual and beliefs), and the King (uniting prakhun, or moral
goodness, and pradecha, or righteous power) the national community celebrates itself and is seen as the “safe” home in an unruly wider world’ (Mulder, 1985, p.180-181).
The significance of the three pillars of Thai identity are embedded into Thai social values and norms for every Thai person to adhere to in their everyday life. For example, this can be seen that in every [primary and secondary] schools in Thailand that cultivate Thai juveniles to pay respect and be thankful to the Thai ancestors, Buddhism, and the monarchy, by encouraging them to sing the national anthem, occasionally taking the loyalty oaths (scouts’ activities) and pray (following Buddhism instruction) every morning before starting classes every day. More specifically, the expectation of this cultivation is that good Thai people should be grateful to someone that used to help them or their parents. This is therefore related to the three pillars. For example: to respect and be grateful for Buddhism, respect older/senior people, be grateful to parents, take care of parents, family or relatives, and be loyal, and honour the king/royal family in relation to the nation (Esterik, 1999; Peter A. Jackson, 2004a). It can be seen that these norms relate to the dominant ideologies of the three pillars of Thainess that are represented in Singha advertising. They can be explained thusly: the king, who everyone respects as the godfather of the nation, which all Thai people are grateful for, has developed the nation and preserved Buddhism as the national religion. The king is regarded as having done good things for the Thai people in every way and therefore could be regarded as the father of the family. Thai people are regarded as the king’s children. Therefore, to be good Thai people in Thai culture, Thai people are culturally taught to take care of their parents or family, love and respect the King, nation, and Buddhism as well as taking pride in their nation. In other words, the Thai Holy Trinity demonstrates the dominant ideology of Thai culture in everyday life (Mulder, 1985; Jorgensen, 1995; Jory, 1999). Consequently, those three pillars were blended with global aspects of capitalism to create masculinity(ies), constructing the ideal male images thus increasing the product’s appeal and persuading target consumers. It is the unpacking and analysis of the masculinities in the Singha brand that we now explore.
5.3 ‘The Singha Man’: Transforming men’s lives into a Brand Masculinity
After reviewing all the adverts, drawing upon several techniques such as emotional appeals, special leisure events, background music, male voice-overs, and images of male/female celebrities or brand endorsers used, it has been found that Singha created three different forms
of masculinity(ies), increasing its product appeal for sales. Arguably, the evidence in this thesis confirmed that Singha is a cultural brand that greatly uses the significance of masculinity(ies) to provide a sense of the Singha brand experience in promoting its brand, as the brand masculinity (Holt, 2003a). As Douglas Holt (2003a) argued, the cultural beer brand promotions heavily employ the brand experiences combined with the ideals of masculinity to promote the brand as brand masculinity: ‘cultural brands are brands for which the product serves as a vehicle through which consumers experience myths [of masculinity] that symbolically ‘resolve’ contradictions in society' (Holt 2003a). This can be seen that Singha appealed to a number of gender myths in order to project its brand, and resolving the social contradictions of how to be good people in Thai society, building up the companies’ brand images.
The three different forms of masculinity that Singha represented are: 1) an image of men associated with paying respect and showing loyalty to the Thai Monarchy, called ‘Monarchy Loyalty (ML)’. This appeared in 53 adverts, the most used technique; 2) an image of capitalist men who love inspiring others to fight and achieve in life, called ‘the Inspiration-Capitalist (INS)’, which ranked the second, appearing in 47 adverts; and 3) an image of men associated with a sense of preserving the local culture, society, art, folk wisdoms, environment, and all other Thai identities which is referred to as ‘Social Responsibility (SR)’, and featured in a total of 40 adverts (see Table 5.1).
Table 5.1 Summary of the contents of advertisements for alcohol on TV
From 1st January 2009 to 31st July 2013 categorised by gender and the constructed meanings of themes
In terms of the consumer culture, the three representations of masculinities are the ideal images of men which symbolically reflect global and local values of aspiration and consumer desire (Belk, 1988; Wattanasuwan, 2005). The masculinities that are used in advertising and branding,
are also provided to consumers to allow them to experience the sense of the Singha brand (Holt, 2003b; Belch et al., 2012; O'Guinn and Semenik, 2012). As Pine and Gilmore (1998) argued about the significance of exploiting the brand experiences for brand promotions in today’ s economy that:
‘… [brand/product] experience is not an amorphous construct; it is as real an offering as any service, good, or commodity. In today’s service economy, many companies simply wrap [brand/product] experiences around their traditional offerings to sell them better… While prior economic offerings - commodities, goods, and services - are external to the buyer, [brand/product] experiences are inherently personal, existing only in the mind of an individual who has been engaged on an emotional, physical, intellectual, or even spiritual level’ (Pine and Gilmore, 1998, p.98& 99).
For this reason, it can be seen that nowaway the companies or manufacturers tend to sell their products, by attaching the intangible assests such as brand experiences, feelings, values, in order to provide the unique brand attitdues towards target consumers. Singha tried to create particular values such as loyalty to the monarchy, inspirational capitalism, and care following Buddhist traditional norms, appealing its targets across Thai society. Hence, the following discussions explore the representations of the three popular Thai masculinities that Singha uses to construct a brand masculinity. It is this brand masculinity that is being promoted to win the market share in alcohol sales.