Building Vietnamese product brands abroad: Lessons from persistence

Branding is the key to increasing the competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products in domestic and world markets. Photo: TL

Successfully building a Vietnamese agricultural product brand

National brands not only contribute to increasing the value of domestic products and services but also create good perceptions about the country's image to international friends.

Brand Finance (the world's leading independent brand valuation and strategy consulting organization, headquartered in the UK) analyzed that Vietnam's national brand's valuation increased by 11%, from US$ 388 billion in 2021 to US$ 431 billion in 2022. Along with the development of Vietnam's National Brand, the brand value of Vietnamese enterprises also increased strongly. The total value of the country's top 50 brands increased by 36%.

If in 2018 there were only 14 Vietnamese National Brand enterprises in the Top 50, accounting for 28%, then after 5 years this number has increased to 21 enterprises, accounting for 42%. In particular, in the Top 10 most valuable brands in Vietnam, the proportion of enterprises with products achieving Vietnam National Brand increased sharply from 20% in 2018 to 69.8% in 2023.

In Brand Finand's evaluation table of the Top 121 strong national brands in the world, Vietnam National Brands are always ranked in the top half of the rankings and have steadily increased in rank over the years. In 2023, Vietnam National Brand is ranked 33/121.

With the desire to bring products far and sustainably, the Vietnam Trade Office in Australia has become a "bridge" to help Vietnamese brands affirm their position in this market. For example, bringing Vietnamese rice "coverage" in Australia. At the time of 2019, consumers in Australia only knew about Thai rice. There were even volunteer programs where Vietnamese people had to spend money to buy Thai rice to give to Vietnamese people. Therefore, when ST25 rice won the "World's Best Rice" award in 2019, the Trade Office simultaneously deployed promotion with a trial using activities of ST25 rice and other types of Vietnamese rice, even though at that time, ST25 rice had not yet been exported to Australia. This has contributed to motivating many importers here to be interested in importing ST25 rice. Not only stopping at ST25, through the success of ST25, the Trade Office has promoted the slogan: "Viet Nam, the land of the best rice in the world" so that other Vietnamese rice and sticky rice varieties can enjoy the same status. Up to now, Vietnamese rice with all kinds of brands has been popular in Australia.

Durian Ri6 is also a successful example in Australia. In 2019, when surveying the market, the business also found that the Australian market only had Thai and Malaysian durians. a small number of Vietnamese durians was available but were mainly used to make cakes. When contacting importers, they all refused to import Vietnamese frozen durian, because Australia was used to eating Monthon and Musanking products.

After careful research, the Trade Office determined to make Vietnamese durian competitive in Australia and chose Ri6 durian to promote in this market. From there, they mobilized and asked a familiar importer in Australia to import 1/2 ton of durian to carry out a program promoting Ri6 durian on the streets of Sydney, in central areas to attract media attention, as well as letting the stores survey the market...

By 2020, the Trade Office has mobilized Asean Company to simultaneously bring whole frozen durian into supermarket stores. As a result, this batch was "sold out". From this event and many subsequent continuous promotional activities, Ri6 durian had a position in Australia, at one point, the price was only slightly lower than Musang King and a series of corporate brands associated with Ri6 were born in Australia.

With the program to build the Vietnamese coconut water brand in Australia. After the survey, Australia did not restrict the import of fresh coconuts, and the demand for healthy, green consumption in Australia prevailed, the Trade Office simultaneously mobilized importers in Australia to import Vietnamese fresh coconuts and canned coconut water. The Trade Office shared that initially, the importer refused because they previously imported Vietnamese coconuts with a non-stable taste as coconuts from other countries. With persistent persuasion about the seed work and standards of growing areas that Vietnam had deployed..., importers accompanied the Trade Office to massively import fresh coconuts and canned coconuts from Vietnam which re-divides the previous market of other countries.

In addition, many programs to promote and build images of Vietnam's strong products are also focused on being implemented by the Trade Office, such as Vietnamese shrimp promotion program in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the People's Committee of Ca Mau province has communicated to Vietnamese shrimp have a more worthy position. Therefore, at a point, Vietnamese shrimp was more expensive than Thai shrimp, but Australian consumers still chose Vietnamese shrimp and this industry brought in large turnover.

Brand building and market development program for pangasius and catfish, a program to build and promote Vietnam as a shoe and textile production center; Programs to promote Vietnamese industries such as construction materials, energy, and mechanical engineering are also continuously promoted. For example, the Trade Office continuously has booths at Australia's largest global sourcing exhibition to promote the Vietnamese leather shoe, textile, and garment industry, the messages given are linked to craftsmanship, tradition, and modern technology along with the environment which has created a Vietnamese brand as the capital of the world's textile, garment and leather shoe manufacturing industry...

Brands enhance product value

Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, Director of the Institute for Brand Strategy and Competitiveness Research, said that the brand was the "price" that partners, customers, and consumers were willing to pay more for the product. Many Vietnamese enterprises today have such valuable brands.

Ms. Le Thi Hang, Deputy General Director of Detech Coffee Joint Stock Company, said that up to now the company had built high-quality processed products, and specialty products, exported indirectly and directly to the markets in European countries, New Zealand, and the US market. Arabica specialty coffee products have been popular in the world market for a long time. The special thing was that in Son La, this coffee line was grown in high mountainous areas, with soil conditions at least 800 m above sea level, so the production, harvesting, and processing conditions of people in ethnic minority areas were very difficult.

“So that, when we went to the Northwest region and worked with people, understood the working conditions, we wanted to bring the value of Arabica coffee not only to the domestic market but to foreign markets. Thereby, bringing regional cultural values to foreign markets to attract not only domestic customers but also international visitors to raw material areas so they can understand and thereby bring profit and create jobs. as well as develop cultural community tourism and coffee in the Son La area, Northwest”, said Ms. Le Thi Hang.

Mr. Le Ba Ngoc, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Handicrafts Association, said that locating and building a brand for a product was like building a brand for an enterprise, building a brand for the industry and building a brand for a nation. With handicrafts, to locate the brand of the product to domestic and foreign consumers, it must come from the actual needs of the market, from customers and the right segment, from which the products would be suitable for each segment. There were 3 main and core issues to locating the brand for handicraft products of ethnic minorities: Vietnamese purity, Vietnamese cultural story; creativity, uniqueness and sustainability. “We must strengthen the promotion of sustainable values to customers and consumers and consider it as a criterion and a distinct value of ethnic minority crafts in particular and Vietnamese crafts in general”, Mr. Le Ba Ngoc said.

From the perspective of Trade Office, the Vietnam Trade Office in Australia believes that now is a very challenging time, it is no longer possible to just advertise and make consumers spend money. Not only growing strongly in quantity but also in quality. One of the solutions proposed by the Vietnam Trade Office to promote Vietnamese goods in this market is to encourage enterprises of the two countries to buy each other's shares and participate in each other's projects. Branding is not only advertising and quality but also being able to cooperate and buy shares of Australian enterprises and Vietnamese enterprises. Because in any context, that connection is real, through buying shares in each other, each other's brands will trust each other. For example, Vietnamese enterprises can buy shares or invest to provide energy projects in Australia. At the same time, they will call on Vietnamese supermarkets to invest abroad, or enterprises and overseas Vietnamese to open more stores and distribution centers...

Ms. Tran Thu Quynh, Commercial Counselor of the Vietnam Trade Office in Canada, said that in 2024, the Trade Office would continue activities to promote supply chain connection and logistics connection between Vietnam and Canada; help enterprises from both sides better understand the Agreement and method taking advantage of CPTPP in their business investment strategies. These series of activities also aimed to promote Vietnamese product sectors that have competitive advantages as well as fundamental industrial sectors that we wanted to attract.

To promote business connections between the two sides, the Trade Office would focus on organizing delegations to return home to buy goods and seek business opportunities, including a delegation of over 100 enterprises that would enter Vietnam in March 2024. and a purchasing group in the textile and garment sector coming to Vietnam to attend the Vietnam Sourcing Fair in June 2024. In addition, the Trade Office would prioritize supporting Vietnamese micro and small enterprises in the field of processed food to participate in international trade through e-commerce solutions and participating in exhibitions and fairs in Canada.