Many PR agencies in Vietnam are far behind the development of new media, especially social media scene. Some agencies’ websites are even nearly invisible to search engines. Early 2007 when Vietnam stock market was at the peak of bubble, Thienviet Securities company, a member of Galaxy Group, got stuck into a scandal about the relationship with Goldman Sachs. At first the news broke out across online forums in order to boost the hype of Thienviet Securities’s share price, and the newspapers came in. Galaxy Communications, a sister company of Thienviet in the Galaxy Group, used to boast itself the top PR agency in Vietnam, could not handle crisis management. Price of Thienviet shares on the OTC market had fallen overnight and investors had boycotted Thienviet. In the marketing, PR service industry, Galaxy lost much credit. If Galaxy understood the power of social media it could manage its image and clients’ brand better. Nowaday many clients could ask “Is your PR agency social media savvy?”

Technorati Tags: Galaxy

The Web has been developing so fast with billions of new pages everyday. Googlers just celebrated the 1 trillion mark. We are talking to VNNIC and search services to find out how big the Web in Vietnamese. As a drop in the ocean how can others find you out with your products and services? SEO, SEM and other digital marketing services could be the answers.

Technorati Tags: Google

Early 2004 a new milk brand from Korea called XO of NamYang Dairy Products Co., Ltd quickly became a top choice among young urban mothers for their children. Different from European and US competitors, XO did not bombard Vietnamese customers with TV and print advertising. With word of mouse marketing on major online forums (or BBS) for young mothers, XO put its price tag as premium brand of 255,000 VND/can-800gram, sometimes customers had to buy for nearly 300,000 VND as demand rocketed (20% - 30% higher than European and US imported). At that time, social media marketing is strange word anywhere and NamYang Dairy was lucky to have leagues of volunteers recommending forum’s members to try XO.

But NamYang Dairy did not enjoy the crown for long as some rumor on forums started spreading 9/2005 about some bad things for their kids. Through out yearend 2005 to first quarter of 2006 young mothers hold wait and see attitude toward XO milk. Second quarter of 2006 was a nightmare for NamYang Dairy as bad news flooded online forums and news websites. Many mothers collected articles and posts from Korea mentioned “harmful germs in Namyang Dairy Products’ baby formulas”. Vietnamese parents started thinking NamYang Dairy cheated its customers with premium price and hiding side effects. A boycott campaign initiated on a leading forum pushed NamYang Dairy into branding crisis. There is no chance for NamYang Dairy to bounce back again.

It is not in US or Korea but in Vietnam, consumers control your branding, so that marketers should start take social media seriously. It is a new battlefield that small and new marketers can play against the giants.

Technorati Tags: dairy, milk, NamYang, WOM, XO