Marketing the (idealized) male body? Communication strategies of Thai cosmetic hospitals
Abstract
This study investigates the communication strategies which Thai cosmetic hospitals pursue to market their services to international male clients. The investigation is predicated upon Taylor’s six-segment message strategy model. Methodologically, corpus-assisted discourse analysis is employed, by qualitatively examining texts containing statistically significant keywords.
The corpus consists of the Englishversion webpages belonging to 20 Thai hospitals with a total number of 73,168 words. Findings indicate that, in the absence of the routine strategy, the ego, social, sensory, acute needs, and ration strategies are implemented. Recommendations on how to improve communication strategies within the healthcare sector are offered.