Vietnam has no strategic thinking in building a national brand

How do you assess the effectiveness of the National Brand Programmeme over time?

The expectations set for the programmeme are quite large. Frankly, the programme has brought great efficiency to the Vietnamese business community, creating a certain power for the business community, making Vietnamese businesses more interested in building trade brands, from which there is a better investment to build your brand.

However, the programme has limitations that include not good communication. Many businesses do not even know about the National Brand Programme. In addition, discussing national branding is about strategic issues. Approaching a strategic corner requires a strategic mindset. Unfortunately, Vietnam does not have strategic thinking for the National Brand Programme in a whole period. Usually the strategy diverged for about five years but so far the programme has been running for 16 years and has yet to get a true strategy.

What is the reason why Vietnamese enterprises have not succeeded in branding for businesses?

The biggest cause of branding of many businesses not really being successful because of the awareness of the business leaders themselves. No company can build a successful brand if its leaders have inadequate awareness and lack of determination.

There are many ways to explain that such businesses are now worrying about how to get profit. However, in my opinion, the issue of branding needs to start as soon as the enterprise starts operating. Vietnamese businesses neglect that. Many businesses think that when they become famous, they will invest. However, there is no famous natural enterprise; the product becomes famous without investment from the first days.

How do you rate new points in the 2019 National Brand Programme?

Currently there are three proposals to expand the National Brand Programme in 2019.

The first, expansion of the participating objects for the programme. We only selected brands of businesses; the expansion will be expected to propose in 2019. It can be a collective brand, for example, brand names for regional specialties orbrands with geographical indications.

The second, for the programme participants, we are only interested in businesses participating in the programme but there are many other subjects. For example, in the field of training, training facilities, research institutes, health care facilities, there is almost no strong investment in this issue.

Thirdly, the coming time must have very strong attention and connection between relevant departments and sectors. Currently, Vietnam does not have a good connection, especially with tourism brand development programmes, developing tourist destination brands as well as diplomatic activities.

Many have said that building a national brand does not belong to enterprises. What is your point of view?

Building a national brand is not only a business but also a community, Government, locality, overseas Vietnamese community, and diplomatic field for each domestic citizen. For example, if one citizen badly behaves with tourists; tourists do not want to return to Vietnam. This relates to both investment, tourism, and all factors.

Because of limited resources, in this early period, Vietnam chose the simplest approach of building a national brand based on the development of products. This is the way of Vietnam. I appreciate the idea that building a national brand is not only based on a certain resource but also has to exploit all resources, especially the exploitation of external resources. For example, foreign investors are an extremely important resource, especially the overseas Vietnamese community.

In the context of Vietnam's economy deeply integrating with the world economy, how does building a national brand need to be changed to make the best of our opportunities?

In 2019-2025, the first thing is to plan the national branding strategy and this strategy should be focused on three ideas.

The first is to focus on executive management. Currently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is directly assigned to run the National Brand Programme. However, in some countries, the Prime Minister will manage this issue directly. I think that is very important. At higher levels it will connect between parts, mobilise better resources.

The second is the selection of positioning values. Clearly, for the last 16 years, the positioning values we have chosen may no longer be relevant in the current context, so it is necessary to fix the National Brand Programme. Vietnam locates the national brand on three values: Quality, innovation and leading capacity. In the past 16 years, Vietnam chose the leading enterprise in the industry. In the near future, perhaps Vietnam needs experts to organise the table and reposition the national brand value to pursue.

From another perspective, Vietnam should build a national brand through product development, emphasising export approach. In the first phase, Vietnam was positioned according to the export market. In the near future, Vietnam is not only interested in exporting but also has to pay attention to the domestic market. It is the Vietnamese people who affirm the value of the National Brand Programme.

Third, I think it is important to focus and more effort in implementing the content, especially communication for programmes and communications for the consumer community to understand the value of the programme. As well as the value of product brands that achieve national brands.