The saga between Nokia, FPT and Recording Industry Association of Vietnam (RIAV) broken out since last month made the Nokia guys a headache. We do not want to talk about who is right or will win the case here but the way Nokia and FPT manage online reputation. When people heard the case, try to search “FPT Nokia music” in Google the top result returned with Techcrunch post. Of course many local online newspapers copied and pasted the news but how Techcrunch cared about a small market such as Vietnam (in Techcrunch view). How Robin Wauters know from inside out of the case since he is not from Vietnam or based in SE Asia?
Nokia uses a league of ad agencies and PR firms worldwide, why they let it happened. Bad news always runs faster than the good one. In addition to blog posts, forum discussion, viral messenger you can find thousands of twittering the Nokia pirated.
It is time now for PR guys to learn the social media marketing rather than stick to traditional media even in a developing country like Vietnam.

Technorati Tags: FPT, music, Nokia, RIAV, TechCrunch

HP is one of the IT giants grasp the power of blogoshere with its first campaign to promote its new notebook, HP HDX Dragon Entertainment Notebook. HP decided to hire a social media marketing agency Buzz Corp to run the campaign. Buzz Corp got in touch with 31 influential tech bloggers to reach out potential customers. At the end of the contest, the first five pages of Google results for searches on HP and HP Dragon were filled with links to blog posts praising the Dragon notebook during the contest, HP reports. There were more than 380,000 links to the 31 sites discussing the contest. Moreover, the 31 blogs garnered more than 25,000 contest entries and an average 150% increase in traffic. Traffic on HP.com increased almost 15%. And when it came to the ultimate goal of the blogger outreach marketing program, sales of the Dragon grew nearly 85%, the retailer says

Technorati Tags: Dragon, HP

Technorati Tags: Charlene Li

Some months ago local media bombarded article stating that Vietnamese people were most interested in Sex based on Google Trends. However we just tried the Google Insights for Search with some keywords relating to Sex and found out some interesting figures:

For Sex keyword: Vietnam is the second after Pakistan in volume of search, but plus Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India made South Asia on top, North Africa is the second group.

Update: 21st September down to 4th position

For Porn: no clear winner but Bangladesh is till the runner-up

With Nude keyword: all top five positions went to South Asian countries with Pakistan and Bangladesh shared the top.

Tried a combination of video + sex: Cambodia took the crown, but Bangladesh is the second again plus two other South Asian (India, Sri Lanka)

From these results we can say that Vietnamese people are far behind South Asian people in searching Sex related keywords. Bangladesh is truly the top country that its people most interested in sex matters using search service from Google. Maybe Vietnamese Internet users are not as sophisticated as South Asians in using keywords.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Trends, Insights, sex, Trends, Vietnam

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

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