Vietnam’s economy has experienced a rapid acceleration in recent years. The government exceeded its target of 7% growth in GDP for 2022, which is a sign of resilience in the face the ongoing pandemic. The digital advertising budget is expected to reach $1.044 Million by 2022. This country is home to the third largest population in South East Asia. Foreign investors are now focusing their attention on it. This means that there are more local and global competitors. Marketers must be able to effectively market their product or service by using the best advertising and marketing strategies.
This article identifies the top marketing trends in Vietnam over the past year. It will continue to be a storming force into 2023, which will help your brand make a strong entry in Vietnam.
KOCs – An ongoing trend to replace KOLs marketing
KOCs are Key Opinion Consumers, who are influential buyers in the market. They test products/services and provide comments and reviews. They have less than 1000 followers on social media. KOCs can have a significant impact on customers’ decision making because of their impartiality and trustworthiness regarding the products they review.
Today’s customers are extremely intelligent. KOLs can have large followings, but not all of their followers trust them. Customers know that the videos they create rely on paid sponsorship. KOLs are not as credible and authentic as real consumers or KOCs.
KOCs, on the other hand are real consumers. KOCs are independent of any media agency or channel. Their shopping habits, product selections, shopping experience, and evaluation are all their own. KOC will actively choose brands/products and make honest comments. They won’t necessarily follow a script from the brand.
KOCs have many benefits
- Brands can save money by paying a small commission (7-20% for new customers and 2-6% for repurchase clients), which amounts to a maximum cost of about 15,000 VND/order.
- Increase revenue effectively: KOCs directly experience products and services, giving their honest opinions without relying on brands. KOCs will give customers a more authentic experience by sharing their reviews.
- Building customer trust: KOCs not only deliver effective sales results but also help brands build trust and credibility with customers through objective and honest reviews.
After a campaign that used 10 KOCs concurrently, a brand earned a revenue of 101.3 million VND. This corresponds to a conversion rate 4.60%. This is quite a high number compared to direct selling or advertising (Source: Onseller.vn)
TikTok Challenge is a must to reach GenZ
According to ByteDance’s advertising materials, Tiktok boasts 39.91 million users in Vietnam. This is 40.8% of Vietnam’s total population. According to data from Meta, 2022, TikTok users in Vietnam outnumber Instagram’s 11.65 million users.
TikTok’s GenZ accounts account for 58% of Vietnamese users aged 13-24. This makes TikTok a fertile land for businesses looking to reach this market. TikTok is the source of many “trends” among today’s young people. TikTok Challenge is one of the many marketing methods available on TikTok. It has created successful advertising campaigns and appealed to GenZ’s tastes.
TikTok Challenge encourages users to take part in large-scale brand challenges. Statistics show that TikTok Challenge has a 17.5% higher engagement rate, 4x more brand recognition than other forms of advertising, and 2x more profitable.
The campaign to promote Maybelline NewYork’s matte lipsticks was one of the most successful campaigns on Tiktok in the beauty industry. To increase interaction and enjoyment, Tiktok will attach cute stickers to videos that show choreography to fun, dynamic music. This campaign was viewed 33.8 million times on Tiktok.
Shoppertainment – helping brands achieve breakthrough sales and branding
Shoppertainment, a form of entertainment-driven commerce, uses amusing activities to create a better shopping experience. There are many ways to entertain shoppers, including hunting for discount codes and interactive games that can redeem rewards, livestreams with celebrities,… Shoppertainment makes brands more interesting and more engaging for customers, which in turn leads to more brand love and sales.
TikTok and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), conducted a research that found this new commerce movement could create a $1 trillion opportunity by 2025 for brands in Asia Pacific (APAC).
Two of APAC’s fastest growing markets are Thailand and Vietnam. They will combine with Australia to make an incredible 63% CAGR over the next three years, quadrupling their market value from USD24 million to USD100 billion.
International cosmetics brand Garnier launched in Vietnam a TikTok campaign to promote its new serum skin care product. Garnier collaborated with Gen-Z brand ambassador Amee to create a signature track and a hashtag challenge. This was to encourage more organic engagement during the 12.12 Shopping Festival, which generated urgency for buying through pop-up ads. This campaign generated 283 million videos and drove a 30% increase in Shopee’s e-commerce sales. It also led to a 6.6% rise in brand recommendations.
Brands can make a huge impact on sales and branding by making use of the shoppertainment trends through creative marketing campaigns.
The king content form of 2023 is short videos
People’s ability to process information is declining due to an increasing amount of information. Therefore, people prefer to consume short and vivid content. Short-form videos are now the king content over image/text formats and long-form videos on social networks.
According to surveys, 72% of people prefer watching videos over texts. Branding content that use short videos get 22% more engagement compared to other content formats.
Short videos also have the potential to create viral effects more effectively than other formats. Because the videos are shorter, it promotes more drama moments. Combined with good music and good acting, they have more chances to make a lasting impression on viewers. The continuous, automatic sliding of short videos is also a magnet that attracts viewers. It makes it difficult for them to leave.
Short-video marketing has been a success for many companies in Viet Nam, especially on Tiktok platfork. Maybelline, for example, reached 19M users and drove retail sales to 790%. Haidilao attracted 82.5 millions viewers, and several accounts joined the #Haidilao hashtag.
Conversational marketing to convert Vietnamese into your customers
Meta’s survey found that 73% of Vietnamese consumers use messaging as a way to contact brands. 40% of Vietnamese consumers increased the frequency of communicating with brands. One of three Vietnamese Consumers who were surveyed said they talk with brands at least once per week.
Chatbot allows businesses to communicate with customers and increase sales without having to spend as much as advertising. Chatbot slowly becomes a valuable source of customer data for businesses. Businesses began to explore the potential of Chatbot and came up with many ways to get customers to interact via Chatbot.
Lorca Vietnam’s “CUNG NHAU SAM BEP” campaign combines Conversational marketing with sales promotion programs like Minigame, Give Away, and others. It attracted a lot of interaction from consumers and increased brand awareness. Customers also gave the brand many positive feedbacks.
- There were more than 3K+ conversations
- More than 17K+ clicks to play games
- More than 1.5M users reach
- More than 85K+ Website Visits