HCM CITY — Viet Nam needs to build strong brands that can compete in the increasingly competitive domestic and international markets to fuel sustainable growth, according to experts.
“A product serves functional benefits, and is interchangeable. But a brand can generate preference and loyalty from customers, and is a much stronger and more enduring base upon which to build one’s business,” said Katryna Mojica, managing director for Olgilvy&Mather Viet Nam at a seminar on branding on Saturday.
“It’s no longer enough to have a brand positioning,” said Stephen Mangham, chairman of O&M Singapore.
Brands needed to have a unique belief system and a point of view that drives everything that a brand does and helps it attract widespred support, he said.
“Over the last two years we have developed a concept called the ‘Big Ideal,’ and found it incredibly useful in strengthening our clients’ brands,” said Mangham.
He explained a Big Ideal was not the same as a brand positioning, which could be based on a purely functional benefit. An ideal contains an inherent point of view, a conception of something in its perfection, to create stronger consumer appeal.
On how to capture big ideals, Mangham said that in this collaborative environment, with various departments, units, even countries, working on a brand, it was helpful to capture what the brand stands for in a short phrase that can be remembered – simple but rich enough to avoid being simplistic. Furthermore, big ideals exist at the intersection between a brand’s core identity and local sociocultural conditions.
Prof. Ho Duc Hung, director of the Institute of Economic Development Research at the HCM City University of Economics, stressed that marketers should understand thoroughly local environmental, cultural, demographic and psychological features, and “use the information to explore opportunities, identify potentials, make forcasts, be creative and transform potentials into reality.”
Hung said recent research on 500 outstanding businesses nationwide showed that up to 25 per cent did not invest in brand building, 70 per cent made insufficient investments, while only 5 per cent were fully committed to the work.
The Government has selected 30 businesses for a national brand programme called “Building Viet Nam’s Brands,” which aims to create a competitive advantage for brands here and overseas. —
Bao Viet Nam 