In this article, Korakan Yamsattham (Game), Deputy Head of D2C and Affiliates, Thailand, AnyMind Group, shares with us how the influencer marketing space in Thailand is shaping up for 2023 and beyond, and identifies several trends that will have a fundamental impact on how marketers and influencers work together.
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Throughout the past several years, brands have learned to work through multi-faceted approaches, such as online platforms with new features that promote collaboration between influencers and brands. Brands have also made great efforts to look for KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers) instead of relying solely on KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders), as the world is constantly evolving and so are people online. People’s decisions to believe > love > buy have changed, and they now demand more information to make decisions. However, the use of influencers as KOLs still exist despite the backlash of collaborations between influencers and brands.
For brands, the objective is to grow sales by working with influencers. In short, they want to increase brand sales with the help of influencers. From our experience, every time a brand wants to work with an influencer, we recommend implementing Full Funnel Influencer Marketing as follows:
Defining the objectives of working with influencers is essential to structure the collaboration effectively. By doing so, you will be able to answer questions about measuring KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for different objectives, such as:
- During the AWARENESS stage, we measure the awareness/reach of the influencer’s post.
- During the CONSIDERATION stage, we measure the number of interactions with the post or engagement rate.
- Finally, during the CONVERSION stage, we measure the sales results or cost per sale, which is at the forefront of every marketer’s mind.
The rise of social commerce in Thailand Social Commerce has been a popular sales channel in Thailand for the past four years and will become even more interesting in the future. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in this part of the world in early 2020, the pandemic has fueled the growth of online shopping. More than 70% of consumers in Thailand respond to online shopping, which means that most Thai consumers have learned and started shopping more online.
Previously, many social media platforms launched Social Commerce features, but there were few users, both in terms of merchants and buyers. However, when a big player like TikTok opened the TikTok Shop service, it shook up the Social Commerce industry, and many major brands now want to be top sellers on the platform.
TikTok Shop has redefined Social Commerce with the term “Shoppertainment”: Entertainment-first, commerce-second. This demonstrates a critical turning point in reducing the process for consumers to make faster purchase decisions. TikTok leads buyers with fun videos or live product reviews, and easy integration of KOCs through the TikTok platform allows buyers to become reviewers and earn commissions.
Another social commerce platform worth keeping an eye on is Line Shopping, a platform for trading products from a major chat provider. LINE has as many as 50 million users in Thailand.
Influencers in Thailand are creating their own brands and merchandise It’s become quite the norm that in Thailand, influencers are creating their own products or brands as another way to increase their income. There are various ways this is done – by creating independent brands, leveraging on their existing clout and naming the brand after themselves, and also by collaborating with other brands and organizations to launch products.
Influencers such as Nisamanee Nutt and MayyR have launched their own brands that are independent of their personal brand, with names such as Land of N and 11AM respectively. On the other hand, parenting influencer Little Monster has launched a line of products under their “Little Monster” name.
On the other hand, Thai kickboxer, Buakaw, recently collaborated with international music festival Rolling Loud Thailand to launch limited edition ring wear and apparel. Besides that, he also has various apparel lines and even his own brand of fermented fish sauce.
This also means that these influencers may choose not to collaborate with competing brands, but at the same time, can collaborate with brands and products that are complementary to their own brand and products.
Looking ahead In the near future, the collaboration between influencers and brands in Thailand will continue to evolve, with a focus on measuring product sales. For example, in 2023, brands are increasingly looking at running affiliate marketing campaigns with influencer marketing, allowing influencers to earn commission from the products they sell through their posts or content. This is considered a powerful marketing tool in Thailand.
However, as mentioned earlier, it’s still important to create awareness and build brand recognition first before looking at lower funnel metrics for influencer marketing campaigns. In other words, when consumers know about a brand and product features, it becomes easier for them to decide to purchase products that they trust and want to consume.
