Smith Boonchutima

Multiple brands, especially in the beauty industry, have considered and employed marketing strategies involving augmented reality (AR) in the past few years. However, the efficiency of augmented reality marketing (ARM) remains understudied. There are few experimental studies, and most are based on samples from western cultures and feature a narrow range of products. This study aims to fill this gap by conducting an experimental study using a sample of Generation Z women in Thailand to examine the effect of AR on lipstick purchase behaviour. This study primarily compares the efficiency of traditional and ARM in improving brand attitudes, reducing the perceived risk related to making a purchase and increasing purchase intentions. The results demonstrate that traditional marketing and ARM lead to significantly different results regarding the three constructs. Nonetheless, both approaches are effective in achieving all three desired outcomes. ARM is slightly more effective in reducing perceived risk, thereby providing valuable insights into its potential for successfully marketing cosmetics.

In the last few years, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of everyday activities were shifted online. Therefore, marketing strategies had to adapt to this shift. This led to the development of new forms of marketing, including influencer marketing. Although credibility is often theorised as the reason why the audience prefers to follow influencers over celebrities, empirical evidence is mixed and unrelated to the gaming industry. Therefore, our aim in this study was to test if source credibility (and its three elements: attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise) predicts video games purchase intentions, as well as to check if the model misspecifications caused by ignored links of causality led to inconsistent conclusions in earlier studies. The results based on an international sample of PewDiePie's followers (N = 238) have confirmed both ideas: source credibility predicts purchase intentions and model misspecifications of source credibility could hav...

One of the challenges of health communication during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been maintaining the credibility of official sources of information. Netizens constantly questioned the authorities’ messaging for inconsistencies in official narratives, which led to the dissemination of what came to called fake news that just happened to occasionally to be true. COVID skepticism affected countries around the world including Thailand, where social media users were regularly suspicious of the government narratives presented to the general public. The question arose of how people can factcheck official messaging that appears to be questionable, and the subject remains an issue more than 2 years later: Who should be the ultimate arbiter of truth in the COVID debate, and when does one turn to this arbiter? This paper follows Thailand social media discourse in an examination of discursive frames with the aim of identifying the correlations between public approval of...

Background: Knowledge sharing is a well-established field of research with an increasing popularity in Thailand. All government offices are now required to hold knowledge management activities to manage their body of knowledge. This will ensure that officers are allowed to learn from each other and constantly develop better work practices. However, difficulties faced by organizations including, limited budgets, scattered and preoccupied personnel, and fast changing computer and information technology, especially social media, mean that the process of knowledge sharing should be carefully designed before implementation. This will help prevent the knowledge sharing project being seen as a waste of time and effort. Methods: A survey was conducted to measure the current preferences, practices, needs, and obstacles regarding internal knowledge sharing among the government officers, in addition to identifying a suitable platform that best suits these criteria. One hundred and eleven public health officers were selected as questionnaire respondents due to their position and responsibility for health communication for the Department of Disease Control throughout Thailand. The topic of diabetes prevention communication was purposively chosen owing to the high prevalence and low risk perception of diabetes among the Thai population. Results: Responses show a clear preference for using Facebook as an encouraging, effective, and familiar platform for information exchange. In addition to the social networking aspect, respondents expressed a desire to include mentors and health communicators with different levels of experience in their discussion groups. Further offline components are also indicated as useful and preferred modes of communication, including physical meetings and study trips, where health communication practitioners could meet and discuss with those who excel at communication practices regarding public health information. Lectures and workshops were selected and seen as necessary to orientate group members on the process of knowledge selection, whereby participants select topics for discussion, and knowledge sharing. Conclusions: The goal, practice, and effectiveness of knowledge sharing in Thailand is generally accepted among government public health officers. Initial practitioner unfamiliarity, skepticism, and discomfort can be overcome if the appropriate components and procedures are utilized. This survey's results can be taken into consideration by knowledge managers for the development of a knowledge sharing model.

The objective of this study was to develop an appropriate media master in the context of Thailand-Myanmar border, analyzing similarity or difference of media master between regular tuberculosis and multi-drugs resistant-TB, the forms and channels for tuberculosis media master, and the appropriate contents to produce multi-language media for TB risk communication. The methodology was a qualitative method combining with both of story telling based on experiences and focus group discussion techniques. Data were collected through interview using semi-structure questionnaire. It was found that persons involving in media master production should be public health officers, staff of non-government organizations, entrepreneurs, employers of migrant workers, physicians and scholars, as well as graphic designers in the final process of media production. However, migrant health volunteers should participate in content design process to identify “common words” which would be generally perceived ...

The ethnic Chinese diaspora in post-independent Brunei Darussalam has widely been regarded as strangers in their own home in spite of their recognizable economic contribution, social status and high education. Approximately 42,700 Bruneian-born Chinese are currently living in the country, the majority of whom do not have Bruneian citizenship. They are labelled either stateless or permanent resident, which prevents them from acquiring rights and social welfare available to the citizens of the country. Interestingly, the marginal position of the ethnic Chinese population, a result of the country’s national philosophy of Malay Islamic Monarchy, has been captured and portrayed in recent dramatic plays written by a group of university students. In this study, we analyzed the representations of Chinese characters in three plays from the book.  In the spotlight: Bruneian plays in English (2012), a collection of plays written by students of Universiti Brunei Darussalam. In the first play, T...

The objectives of this study are to create a framework to evaluate government websites. Qualitative research was employed, including in-depth interviews and literature analysis. Results show that government organisations in general still do not take public relations efforts seriously and seem to communicate in a one-way manner. Consequently, their websites are mainly used to disseminate information rather than to engage in conversation with their key public. They also heavily rely on data gathered by available computing software and rarely use other empirical data such as content analysis, attained awards and ranking, and admiration indexes as performance indicators. To evaluate the output and outcome of public relations efforts in a more systematic way, this paper adapted a five-dimension model and situational website evaluation frameworks have then been created based on research findings. The framework gives each criterion clearer indicators and categorises them into five dimensions and two situations. Due to multiple indicators and measurements, there is a need to select only indicators that can ensure results that meet their evaluation objectives without spending unnecessary time and effort on superfluous evaluation documents.

Myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is a musculoskeletal disease that is stimulated by Myofascial trigger points (TrPs). Exercise is recognized as one of the most essential treatment interventions for people at risk of MPS. Currently, there is an inexpensive equipment available on the online market for recording 360 videos. Meanwhile, YouTube provides free services for users to upload 360 videos. Based on these advances, the VR technique to treat MPS should have a better opportunity to reach more users. The primary aim of this research was to examine the attitudes and opinions of working-age women on VR360 videos presenting content focused on relieving MPS in the neck and shoulder area by conducting simple exercises. The 20 working-age women aged 25-40 who were considered at risk of the MPS were selected as participants of this study. The questionnaires and in-depth interviews were utilized to collect the data after the participants viewed the VR360 video, during March-April 2017. The pa...

In Thailand, the typical journalist is male, in their late thirties and holds a university degree in a field of journalism or communication. Among journalists that were interviewed, 161 were women, making for a proportion of 43.8 percent of the overall sample. The average age for a Thai journalist was 37.19 years (s=11.33), while three quarters of the sample were under the age of 30. Over 80 percent of journalists are holders of a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree; 70.9 percent of the respondents held a Bachelor’s degree, and another 10.7 percent earned a Master’s degree. There were no journalists who had completed a Doctoral degree in this study. Almost one in seven

Background: Gay dating applications (apps) serve the drive for meeting sex partners and are now used by over 2 million gay men around the world. The nature of these apps involves users engaging in conversation that allows for significant information disclosure and increased trust, allegedly leading to unprotected sex when they meet offline. Methods: This study therefore aimed to explore the behavior of users of gay dating applications in Thailand and their pattern of information disclosure in order to investigate the relationship between app usage, information disclosure, and the resulting sexual behavior. Two hundred and eighty-six gay-dating application users in Thailand were surveyed with a self-administered, anonymous online questionnaire between February and March 2015. Results: The findings showed significant positive association between the degree of usage and the amount of information being disclosed.  Moreover, the frequency of usage such as the number of days (r = .249), t...

ABSTRACTBranded iphone apps have had varying degrees of success in appealing to the Millennial demographic. Our research conclusions are based on literature review, textual analysis of award winning apps, developer interviews, and discussion with two groups from the Thai Generation Y demographic, and show that successful branded apps for iphone follow a 3 stage development strategy, express brand identity, and meet the needs and preferences of the target audience. The findings show that in app design, color and typeface are commonly used to subtly express brand identity. Relevant messages delivered through an experimental style were found to express brand personality. Technologies and features in all three apps were simple enough to increase usability and prevent user confusion. The development strategy can be divided into 3 stages: pre-production, production and evaluation. It is also found that Thai Generation Y have a strong demand for iPhone apps that provide them with useful co...

The fashion industry’s heightened focus on sustainable production has enhanced the emergence of varied eco-conscious procedures such as re-upcycling. Nonetheless, the multiple steps required for such procedures often lead to more expensive products, consequently lowering consumers’ motivation to purchase such products. Do-it-yourself (DIY) fashion videos can motivate individuals to try DIY fashion, while promoting sustainable production and consumption of clothing. This study tested if DIY fashion videos could be used to change the perception among Thai youth on the DIY sustainable fashion. An Instagram profile named ‘Broke Vogue’ was created and it shared a variety of DIY fashion-related contents and activities. The page gained 300 followers during the six weeks it was active. The profile also invited participants to take a survey to evaluate their attitudes towards DIY fashion. This served as the data source of this study. The majority of participants in the survey were university...

This research aims to determine the effectiveness of the Department of Disease Control's communication performance and recommended guidelines for improving it. Daniel Stufflebeam's CIPP model is applied as the evaluation framework. Communication planning, operating, and evaluation literature are reviewed to specify relevant factors in this field.Although the researchers could not come to a conclusion as to the effectiveness of communication performance due to vague raw data, many parts of the study are very useful, providing insight on the organization's current communication performance.The organization's operations are very bureaucratic, causing inflexibility as well as an unclear organizational structure. This has a negative impact on the organization's communication operation's input and processes, which urgently need to be improved. The product's performance indicators are mostly unreported and measured only once a year rather than, at least, at the ...

Branded iphone apps have had varying degrees of success in appealing to the Millennial demographic. Our research conclusions are based on literature review, textual analysis of award winning apps, developer interviews, and discussion with two groups from the Thai Generation Y demographic, and show that successful branded apps for iphone follow a 3 stage development strategy, express brand identity, and meet the needs and preferences of the target audience. The findings show that in app design, color and typeface are commonly used to subtly express brand identity. Relevant messages delivered through an experimental style were found to express brand personality. Technologies and features in all three apps were simple enough to increase usability and prevent user confusion. The development strategy can be divided into 3 stages: pre-production, production and evaluation. It is also found that Thai Generation Y have a strong demand for iPhone apps that provide them with useful content, serve their specific needs, and fit with their lifestyles. It suggests that the brand officers should always be clear about the target group’s needs and expectations of design, features, and usage. Apps should be designed to engage with the consumer rather than simply selling products to them.

Background: Knowledge sharing is a well-established field of research with an increasing popularity in Thailand. All government offices are now required to hold knowledge management activities to manage their body of knowledge. This will ensure that officers are allowed to learn from each other and constantly develop better work practices. However, difficulties faced by organizations including, limited budgets,
scattered and preoccupied personnel, and fast changing computer and information technology, especially social media, mean that the process of knowledge sharing should be carefully designed before implementation. This will help prevent the knowledge sharing project being seen as a waste of time and effort.
Methods: A survey was conducted to measure the current preferences, practices, needs, and obstacles regarding internal knowledge sharing among the government officers, in addition to identifying a suitable platform that best suits these criteria. One hundred and eleven public health officers were selected as questionnaire respondents due to their position and responsibility for health communication for the Department of Disease Control throughout Thailand. The topic of diabetes prevention communication was purposively chosen owing to the high prevalence and low risk perception of diabetes among the Thai population.
Results: Responses show a clear preference for using Facebook as an encouraging, effective, and familiar platform for information exchange. In addition to the social networking aspect, respondents expressed a desire to include mentors and health communicators with different levels of experience in their discussion groups. Further offline components are also indicated as useful and preferred modes of communication,
including physical meetings and study trips, where health communication practitioners could meet and discuss with those who excel at communication practices regarding public health information. Lectures and workshops were selected and seen as necessary to orientate group members on the process of knowledge selection, whereby participants select topics for discussion, and knowledge sharing.
Conclusions: The goal, practice, and effectiveness of knowledge sharing in Thailand is generally accepted among government public health officers. Initial practitioner unfamiliarity, skepticism, and discomfort can be overcome if the appropriate components and procedures are utilized. This survey's results can be taken into consideration by knowledge managers for the development of a knowledge sharing model.

The objectives of this study are to create a framework to evaluate
government websites. Qualitative research was employed, including in-depth interviews and literature analysis. Results show that government organisations in general still do not take public relations efforts seriously and seem to communicate in a one-way manner. Consequently, their websites are mainly used to disseminate information rather than to engage in conversation with their key public. They also heavily rely on data gathered by available computing software and rarely use other empirical data such as content analysis, attained awards and ranking, and admiration indexes as performance indicators. To evaluate the output and outcome of public relations efforts in a more systematic way, this paper adapted a five-dimension model and situational website evaluation frameworks have then been created based on research findings. The framework gives each criterion clearer indicators and categorises them into five
dimensions and two situations. Due to multiple indicators and measurements, there is a need to select only indicators that can ensure results that meet their evaluation objectives without spending unnecessary time and effort on superfluous evaluation documents.