LOCAL BRANDING STRATEGIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN ISLAMIC CULTURES
Main Article Content
Abstract
In the beauty industry, local companies lose and the foreign companies win in nearly all places around the world. However, it is believed that in Islamic and traditional cultures, local companies have a competitive edge over foreign multinational companies, an edge that impacts consumer choices. What contributes to this edge combines the concepts of Warisan (traditional and cultural) and halal (an Islamic concept of purity and cleanliness) that are applied by local companies in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to compete against multinational companies and win battles for profits. In the beauty industry, the literature lacks an explanation of why consumers choose certain beauty product brands and the reasons for their choices in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. To understand the impacts on consumers’ choices between local and international brands and to evaluate the effectiveness of branding strategies in the beauty industry, a survey was conducted in Indonesia (Jakarta), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) and Thailand (Bangkok). In total, 361 questionnaire surveys were conducted with female respondents at various locations in the three countries. The study found that despite the fact that local companies leveraged their competitive advantages, beauty product users in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand preferred product qualities such as suitability, quality and indigenous ingredients to local or foreign brands. International brands had a significant impact on consumers in each of the three countries. However, global brands did not use a halal logo demonstrating that consumers preferred foreign over local brands despite the high level of awareness for halal products and ingredients (including indigenous herbs), that international brands did not offer. Indigenous branding strategies that emphasized halalness and indigenous knowledge of herbs were less impactful on brand choice. The quality, suitability, and ingredients took precedence over the halal factor.
Keywords: Southeast Asian Islamic cultures, halal, indigenous knowledge, indigenous ingredients, tayyibah
Downloads
Article Details
JATI PUBLICATION ETHICS & PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT:
These guidelines are fully consistent with the COPE Principles of Transparency and Best Practice Guidelines and the COPE Code of Conduct (https://publicationethics.org).
We encourage the best standards of publication ethics and take all possible principles of transparency and measures against publication malpractices. The Department of Southeast Asian Studies, as the publisher, plays its role of guardianship over all processes of publishing seriously, and we perform our ethical and other tasks.
- General duties and responsibilities of editors
Editors should be accountable for everything published in their journals. This means the editors should strive to meet the needs of readers and authors; constantly improve their journal; have processes in place to assure the quality of the material they publish; champion freedom of expression; maintain the integrity of the academic record; preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards; and always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed. In addition to these general duties, the editors accept the obligation to apply best will and practice to cope with the following responsibilities: - Editorial Board
Will generate editorial board from recognized experts in the field. The editor will provide full names and affiliations of the members and updated contact information for the editorial office on the journal webpage. - Duties of Reviewers
Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions, and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. - Duties of Authors
Reporting standards
Authors should follow the format of reporting the original research with accurate data gathered. The author should include sufficient detail and references to allow others to replicate the work. It is unacceptable if the author performs malpractices in the paper. - Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have produced original articles and must appropriately cite or quote if the authors have used the work and words of others. - Concurrent Publication
It is ethical and acceptable for an author to submit or publish the same research or manuscripts in more than one journal or primary publication. - Acknowledging the Sources
Authors should cite properly publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. - Paper authorship
Those who have contributed significantly to the paper should be named as an author and co-authors. Those who have participated in the aspects of the research should be listed as contributors. All co-authors should have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. - Announcement and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should include the financier or grant giver if the manuscript or research is financed by the research grant or any financial support body. - Errors in published works
The author is responsible for communicating and co-operating with the editor to retract or correct the paper when a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work. - Publication decisions
The editor should decide which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. - Peer review process
All journal's content (articles) are subjected to a double-blind, peer-review process. Articles are first reviewed by editors and may be rejected because it is not dealing with the subject matter. Articles that are found suitable for review are then sent to two experts who are unknown to each other in the field of the paper.
Reviewers are asked to classify the paper as publishable, with amendments and improvements, or rejected. Reviewer's evaluations usually include what to do with the article. The author then sees the reviewer's comments.
Editors should be ready to justify any important points from the described process. Editors should not reverse decisions on publication. Editors should publish guidance to both authors and reviewers on everything expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated and referred to or linked to this code. - Fair play
The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. Editors' decision to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper's importance, originality and clarity, and the study's relevance to the journal's aim. - Digital Archiving
The editor will ensure digital access to the journal content by the University of Malaya Journal depository section at http://jati-dseas.um.edu.my and MyJournal at http://www.myjurnal.my/public/browse-journal-view.php?id=39. - Confidentiality
Editor and any editorial staff must keep confidential all information about the manuscript's submitted and review process to anyone except the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher. - Publication and Submission fee
Authors are freed from submission fees. Authors are required to pay the Article Processing Fee, RM300 or USD80. - Open Access Policy
The journal is freely available online. Authors must agree with this open access policy which enables unrestricted access and reuse of all published articles. The articles are published under the Creative Commons copyright license policy CC-BY. - Reporting standards
Authors of papers should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the article. An article should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial 'opinion' works should be identified as such. - Originality and Plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works and if the authors have used the work and words of others, this has been appropriately cited or quoted.