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Some handicraft products are made from banana peels from Thanh Binh Cooperative. Photo: TL

Cultural value elevates the brand

Talking about the issue of developing brands for products at the seminar "Brand Positioning for Products in ethnic minority and mountainous areas" organized by Industry and Trade Magazine, on October 9, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, Director of the Institute for Brand Strategy and Competitiveness Research, said that a brand is not simply an image, but through which people recognize and feel the product, and most importantly, the Understanding leads to actions of customers and consumers. That action can be buying or selling, experiencing the product, or spreading the product.

According to Mr. Vo Tri Thanh, the brand is the "price" that partners, customers, and consumers are willing to pay more for the product. With large corporations and brands worth billions and hundreds of millions of dollars, many Vietnamese businesses today also have such valuable brands.

Products from ethnic minorities and mountainous areas also contain two great values, also known as differences in addition to the common. When thinking about mountainous products, people think of closeness and friendliness to nature, this is very consistent with current trends. That is the trend of green living, green, and safe production. Besides, when thinking about these products, people see tradition, as a cultural foundation that any person wants to explore and experience. It is these values that create pervasiveness for products, businesses, and regions.

However, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh also pointed out the fact that many product brands have sunk due to not knowing how to exploit and preserve them. Currently, there are many specialty products that do not have their own brands but are only associated with regions. If you can build a unique brand and product, it will be both the image of the region and the image of Vietnam when reaching out to the international market.

Sharing the story of turning Son La coffee into a branded coffee product exported to the world, Ms. Le Thi Hang, Deputy General Director of Detech Coffee Joint Stock Company, said that the motivation comes from being proud and having faith in the potential of Vietnamese coffee.

Son La is a mountainous province in the North of Vietnam, where natural conditions and soil are extremely favorable for growing Arabica coffee. However, Son La coffee is mainly exported in raw form, so even many Vietnamese people do not know that the Northwest region has coffee, especially Arabica coffee. The difference between Arabica coffee is its sour taste and the typical herbal floral flavor of the Northwest region. Detech Coffee wants to bring the value of Arabica coffee to consumers, as well as build a brand for Son La Arabica coffee to support the creation of livelihoods for ethnic minorities there, helping them have a good and more stable life. Up to now, the company has also built high-quality processed products, and specialty products and exported them indirectly and directly to markets in Europe, New Zealand, and the US.

Regarding branding for handicraft products for ethnic minority newspapers, Mr. Le Ba Ngoc, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Handicraft Association, said that handicraft products contain cultural value and close connection with the Vietnamese people in general and ethnic minorities in particular. Stretching from North to South, there are brands that were randomly formed and formed over time such as the weaving craft of the Mong ethnic people, the weaving craft of the Thai ethnic group, the blacksmithing craft of the Nung ethnic group... Currently, people are interested in the issue of branding for products.

“If we ask people now what they need most when producing handicrafts, they always say customers and the market. Therefore, when organizing advertising and trade promotion activities, it will attract great attention from people, producers, as well as businesses that are trading handicraft products of ethnic minorities." Mr. Le Ba Ngoc said.

Correctly identify market needs

To position the brand for products of ethnic minority and mountainous areas in the future, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh said that the strength of products from ethnic minority and mountainous areas is that they have traditions, history, and cultural features that are very respectable and worth exploring. Therefore, the solution to promote brand positioning for products in ethnic minorities and mountainous areas needs to have "stories", and products associated with "stories", which are the cultural stories behind them. Besides, it is necessary to adhere to the trend of the times, living green, safe, and humane.

However, to do this, only businesses and people do not have enough resources or capacity to do it, let alone transmit and promote it on different channels. Therefore, in the story of producing handicraft industries, artisans play an extremely important role. “Maybe they themselves have not been able to tell a truly compelling story, but it is their lives and their knowledge, along with the support of parties such as cultural experts and quality media people will create very good stories", Dr. Vo Tri Thanh shared.

To build and position brands for handicraft products of ethnic minorities, Mr. Le Ba Ngoc said that it is necessary to identify 3 main market segments: local consumption; Serving tourists, and export markets.

To position the brand for products in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, it is necessary to focus on 6 factors including: correctly identifying market needs and having products suitable for each segment (mid-range - high-class); linking cultural traditions with developing regional brands and building national brands; locate the space of handicrafts in ethnic minority and mountainous areas; strengthen linkages between production households and businesses; need more professional promotion; and need stronger policies to promote product consumption.