Opinion Leader and Nutritional Marketing Communication of Nutritional Product in Thailand

Abstract

The rules and regulations for communicating nutritional product in Thailand involve to scrutinize marketing message and information. Marketers have increasing difficulties in conveying their advertising message. Many studies in this field have focused exclusively on marketing communication with traditional mass media sources, yet the role and influence of expert people so called, “opinion leader”, in regard to the provision of information has not been paid attention. To assure marketing information is effectively communicated, the roles and influences of opinion leaders should be considered. This paper reviews the marketing communication of nutritional product in Thailand and discusses the concept of opinion leaders with the application of the two-step flow theory. The findings present an integrated model for marketing communication of nutritional product in Thailand which involves the role and influence of opinion leader as another source of information to provide effective communication. The model could serves as strategic guidelines for providing effective nutritional marketing communication strategy.