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Danny Phan
Yin Yin: Do you have any tips/pointers you would give companies on how to use social media effectively?
Danny: Yes, of course in terms of social media specifically in Vietnam, you have a new generation of consumers, a new generation of stakeholders that are very opinionated, that always will have a point of view about a brand, or about an issue, about a topic. This is a really great way to build a brand, to collaborate so social media can be used as a bridge and as a vehicle to collaborate with your consumers. As we know, it’s this new age of brand-building. That’s my tip. If you’re talking about specifics, I mean that’s why you hire firms like Ogilvy PR right, to give you these specific recommendations. But because it’s such an exciting time and place to be in, Vietnam, considering it’s such a young population, I think it’s a great time for brands to really look at the way they gauge PR.
Yin Yin: So you’re saying that there’s a lot of potential for social media use in Vietnam?
Danny: Absolutely. I will say it is the most untapped resource in PR that I’ve noticed. I haven’t seen that much movement in that space.
Yin Yin: Do you have an example of a company using social media effectively in Vietnam?
Danny: Absolutely. There are a couple of programmes we did under Ogilvy PR that used social media. One of them is Dove, Unilever’s campaign for real beauty. As you know it’s a global campaign, and one of the challenges that we have, was that it wasn’t the whole campaign and the whole idea of beauty stereotypes was perceived as a very Western concept. And it wasn’t necessarily something that was symptomatic in Asia specifically. Because you don’t have people of different races, you have a homogeneous ethnic community and there would be standardized perceptions of beauty. But if you scratch beneath the surface of any culture, the stereotypes around beauty are massive. What we tried to do was to redefine what Vietnamese beauty really means. And in order to do that, we had to search all over the country and the nation for what people believed and perceived Vietnamese beauty was. So we went from traditional places, to community centres, to supermarkets, marketplaces, where consumers were. We got them to take pictures of themselves, upload it to our campaign for real beauty site in Vietnam and had comments and sound bites for what they believed beauty is about today, for them to create a large album dedicated to Vietnamese beauty. So this becomes a national movement where people upload their thoughts, pictures and perceptions of beauty redefined, all in the name of – real beauty. So to that degree it was a very organic, community-driven, digital campaign. Then we aligned it to traditional media where we unveiled the photo album in all of the newspapers the TV stations, the government etc. So we saw a meeting of all of the greatest media forms – where digital media and traditional media came together in a social movement. So I would say that would be one of the more powerful cases of social media use in Vietnam. Well we know this campaign was not exclusive just to Vietnam and that the campaign really took off in a massive way, virally, throughout the world.
Yin Yin: It is interesting to note how digital media and traditional media came together for the campaign that you mentioned. So is it your opinion that they should go hand in hand? How should people use those two forms of media in Vietnam?
Danny: That’s a very good question. In the PR world, I hear a lot about traditional media, social media, digital media as if they were opposing each other and one was going to make the other obsolete. I don’t think that traditional media is really going anywhere, I don’t think journalism is really going anywhere. You still have people going to journalism school and having dreams to be part of the nation’s largest newspaper. I think that will always remain and what the output of that is going to be is still a question mark to a certain degree. But because I believe that traditional media isn’t going anywhere, it is in their best interests to cooperate and basically learn how they can embrace social media. So I think that the two don’t necessarily have to be opposing each other but you need to find great opportunities and avenues for you to cooperate. The campaign for real beauty is basically one example for what that could be. If we’re looking at Singapore for example, we have Today newspaper. Today newspaper has a lot of sections that are dedicated to featuring stories about blogs, digital media, social media so you a see a sort of synergy. And I think this synergy is streamlining all sorts of broadcast newspapers online becomes a great model for a lot of companies. So that’s one direction that companies can go for as well.
Yin Yin: Here’s our last question. So you’ve been living in Vietnam for many years; 2004 to 2008. Are there any unique traits or things to note about the Vietnam audience?
Danny: I would say the cultural differences, the cultural insights between various regions are very important as well. I guess when you go into any country that has different markets, culture and geography, there are always these nuances of what is appropriate and what is not. There will be some regions that are more conservative than others, that are more flashy than others. These are things that are very important when considering a marketing strategy. I think it is about understanding the insights of Vietnamese consumers because if you look at Vietnam, while it is a relatively homogenous society, it’s very, very diverse in terms of taste, in terms of culture and family values. That’s what definitely jumped out at me because before I came into Vietnam I thought wow, it’s just one market but it’s really not. There are many different pockets that have developed. So I think the rapid and blazing speed at which it is developing is something that is really breathtaking and surprising. But I mean Vietnam is not China, but once you get there, you’ll start to feel this vibrancy, this buzz that doesn’t exist anywhere else. I’ve never been in a place where you feel this excitement, this optimism and I think that’s one thing that’s very important for marketers, to take advantage of this as much as possible because it’s very unique I think.
Danny: Yes, of course in terms of social media specifically in Vietnam, you have a new generation of consumers, a new generation of stakeholders that are very opinionated, that always will have a point of view about a brand, or about an issue, about a topic. This is a really great way to build a brand, to collaborate so social media can be used as a bridge and as a vehicle to collaborate with your consumers. As we know, it’s this new age of brand-building. That’s my tip. If you’re talking about specifics, I mean that’s why you hire firms like Ogilvy PR right, to give you these specific recommendations. But because it’s such an exciting time and place to be in, Vietnam, considering it’s such a young population, I think it’s a great time for brands to really look at the way they gauge PR.
Yin Yin: So you’re saying that there’s a lot of potential for social media use in Vietnam?
Danny: Absolutely. I will say it is the most untapped resource in PR that I’ve noticed. I haven’t seen that much movement in that space.
Yin Yin: Do you have an example of a company using social media effectively in Vietnam?
Danny: Absolutely. There are a couple of programmes we did under Ogilvy PR that used social media. One of them is Dove, Unilever’s campaign for real beauty. As you know it’s a global campaign, and one of the challenges that we have, was that it wasn’t the whole campaign and the whole idea of beauty stereotypes was perceived as a very Western concept. And it wasn’t necessarily something that was symptomatic in Asia specifically. Because you don’t have people of different races, you have a homogeneous ethnic community and there would be standardized perceptions of beauty. But if you scratch beneath the surface of any culture, the stereotypes around beauty are massive. What we tried to do was to redefine what Vietnamese beauty really means. And in order to do that, we had to search all over the country and the nation for what people believed and perceived Vietnamese beauty was. So we went from traditional places, to community centres, to supermarkets, marketplaces, where consumers were. We got them to take pictures of themselves, upload it to our campaign for real beauty site in Vietnam and had comments and sound bites for what they believed beauty is about today, for them to create a large album dedicated to Vietnamese beauty. So this becomes a national movement where people upload their thoughts, pictures and perceptions of beauty redefined, all in the name of – real beauty. So to that degree it was a very organic, community-driven, digital campaign. Then we aligned it to traditional media where we unveiled the photo album in all of the newspapers the TV stations, the government etc. So we saw a meeting of all of the greatest media forms – where digital media and traditional media came together in a social movement. So I would say that would be one of the more powerful cases of social media use in Vietnam. Well we know this campaign was not exclusive just to Vietnam and that the campaign really took off in a massive way, virally, throughout the world.
Yin Yin: It is interesting to note how digital media and traditional media came together for the campaign that you mentioned. So is it your opinion that they should go hand in hand? How should people use those two forms of media in Vietnam?
Danny: That’s a very good question. In the PR world, I hear a lot about traditional media, social media, digital media as if they were opposing each other and one was going to make the other obsolete. I don’t think that traditional media is really going anywhere, I don’t think journalism is really going anywhere. You still have people going to journalism school and having dreams to be part of the nation’s largest newspaper. I think that will always remain and what the output of that is going to be is still a question mark to a certain degree. But because I believe that traditional media isn’t going anywhere, it is in their best interests to cooperate and basically learn how they can embrace social media. So I think that the two don’t necessarily have to be opposing each other but you need to find great opportunities and avenues for you to cooperate. The campaign for real beauty is basically one example for what that could be. If we’re looking at Singapore for example, we have Today newspaper. Today newspaper has a lot of sections that are dedicated to featuring stories about blogs, digital media, social media so you a see a sort of synergy. And I think this synergy is streamlining all sorts of broadcast newspapers online becomes a great model for a lot of companies. So that’s one direction that companies can go for as well.
Yin Yin: Here’s our last question. So you’ve been living in Vietnam for many years; 2004 to 2008. Are there any unique traits or things to note about the Vietnam audience?
Danny: I would say the cultural differences, the cultural insights between various regions are very important as well. I guess when you go into any country that has different markets, culture and geography, there are always these nuances of what is appropriate and what is not. There will be some regions that are more conservative than others, that are more flashy than others. These are things that are very important when considering a marketing strategy. I think it is about understanding the insights of Vietnamese consumers because if you look at Vietnam, while it is a relatively homogenous society, it’s very, very diverse in terms of taste, in terms of culture and family values. That’s what definitely jumped out at me because before I came into Vietnam I thought wow, it’s just one market but it’s really not. There are many different pockets that have developed. So I think the rapid and blazing speed at which it is developing is something that is really breathtaking and surprising. But I mean Vietnam is not China, but once you get there, you’ll start to feel this vibrancy, this buzz that doesn’t exist anywhere else. I’ve never been in a place where you feel this excitement, this optimism and I think that’s one thing that’s very important for marketers, to take advantage of this as much as possible because it’s very unique I think.
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, Nov 2 2009, 4:53 AM EST
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