Muketing: How Thais Turned Belief Into the Smartest Brief in the Room

Let me ask you something before we dive in. 

When was the last time you checked your horoscope before a big pitch? Wore a specific colour on a Monday because someone told you it was lucky? Hesitated to book a launch date that just felt… off?

If you said never — fair enough. But if you're sitting in Cannes right now next to someone from Thailand, I'd wager good money that they nodded. Probably without realising they did.

Because in Thailand, belief isn't a personality trait. It isn't something you grow out of when you get a university degree or a LinkedIn profile. It's infrastructure. It shapes mornings, decisions, purchases, and relationships — and if you're a brand paying attention, it shapes the most powerful creative briefs you'll ever encounter.

We have a word for what happens when that belief meets marketing. We call it Muketing.

What is Muketing?

The word is a mashup — and it's worth unpacking, because the mashup itself tells you everything. Mutelu is Thailand's umbrella term for the sprawling belief ecosystem that quietly runs alongside everyday life here — an eclectic mix of Buddhist traditions, Brahman-Hindu rituals, Chinese superstition, astrology, animism, feng shui, spirit worship, lucky numbers, sacred amulets, deity devotion, auspicious dates, fortune-telling, and whatever else might tilt fate slightly in your favour. Everything that sits in the magnificent grey zone between faith and fate. Marketing, you already know. 

Put them together and you get Muketing — the strategy of building brands with belief, not just around it. It sounds niche. The numbers say otherwise.

• Learn more about the concept of Muketing in the full version of this article by Pert Pongpiti Phasukyud, Founder & CEO, AD ADDICT, that will appear in the Lions Daily during the Cannes Lions Festival, June 21 to 26.