Crisis Communication and the Perceptions of Consumers towards Crisis events of Thai businessmen with personal brands

Abstract

The main objectives of this study were to study 1) crisis communication of Thai businessmen with personal brands  and 2) perception of consumers towards crisis of TBPB. It was mixed-method research, employing in-depth interviews with 15 TBPB who clearly did personal brands and had 10,000  followers on their social media and survey research with the sample of 402 Thai consumers aged 18-60 years old. The research instruments were an interview guideline for in-depth interview and a questionnaire for survey research. Qualitive data were analyzed by categorizing key points for summary while descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages, means, and standard deviations were used to analyze quantitative data.         

The research results revealed: 1) TBPB did not have clear and formal advance communication preparations. However, when a crisis occurs, businessmen started by finding the facts internally, then reaching a conclusion with those involved about the communication methods. The channel used for crisis communication included owned media and public relations media. There were various strategies used in communicating crises, including silence, ignorance, being sincere to consumers, not responding, and turning crises into opportunities; and 2) The top three most common consumer perceptions of TBPB crisis events were: business and consumer fraud, business products and services not being legally produced, and business products and services containing dangerous contaminants, respectively. The most channels used to perceive by consumers about crises were Facebook. In addition, consumers perceived that crisis events had no impact on TBPB due to their identities, followed by their images and negotiations, respectively.