Pitchpatu Waiyachote

International Public Relations at Top 50 Global Brands: a Converged or Diverged Approach? Pitchpatu Waiyachote

This study was motivated by limited information about an approach the top 50 global brands apply to their public relations strategies in areas considered smaller developing markets in Southeast Asia, including Thailand and Malaysia. Along World Wide Web technology and a concept of globalization, the Internet brings information to targeted publics faster than the past. Therefore, a purpose of this study was to examine which approach, convergence or divergence, the top 50 global brands commonly took to communicate with their target audiences in these two countries through their local web sites. An answer to a question does not always have to be either yes or no. Thus, it was not a surprise that the findings found two common strategies used by the top 50 global brands to support the idea of international public relations regarding web content. One was the diverged approach in which organizations localized their strategies to match the locals' needs. The other was glocalization, which combines both the converged and the diverged approaches together.