Are social media replacing traditional media in terms of brand equity creation in Thailand?

Abstract

In Thailand, companies’ media expenditure is transferred to social media gradually since consumers are habitually online nowadays (Friedrich et al., 2010). Therefore, this research aims to identify the relationship of brand communications towards brand equity. The communications are divided to traditional media and social media. Moreover, for a deeper understanding, social media is separated into firm- created and user-generated social media communication. Additional factors studied are brand awareness, functional brand image, hedonic brand image, brand attitude and purchase intention. An online questionnaire was designed to 200 respondents who are Thai, had experienced of online advertisement. The data was collected by using convenient sampling method. Correlation analysis and reliability test were used to test the research hypotheses and examine reliability and validity of measurement constructs. The results indicated that traditional media has the least positive relationship on every dimensions of brand equity compared to social media communication. User-generated social media communication overcomes firm-created social media communication on brand awareness and functional brand image but has nearly equal relationship on hedonic brand image. The findings suggest that the combination of traditional media and social media usage is necessary for companies to build their brand equity.