Introduction
In recent past, Vietnam has gradually diversified its market economy towards foreign investors and businesses, climaxing in the accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the beginning of 2007. Historically, most companies in the world of capitalism always want more. They want more profit, more shareholder value, and more market share, among others. The realizations of these objectives have been attained through the successful initiation, development and management of marketing in most instances. Indeed, the effective development and management of marketing has become a major priority for all organizations of all sizes in the different industries and markets. This has been achieved through a cognizance of a cocktail of marketing techniques such as advertising and brand management.
Objectives:
The reasons for this are certainly clear; better advertisement approaches are positively correlated with customer loyalty and profits. There is abidance in the fact that since the 1990s, studies of consumers have revolutionized our understanding of Vietnam. Once considered peripheral, consumption is now understood to be central to major aspects of Vietnam history from politics, economics, and religion, to the social history of gender and race. This paper seeks to demonstrate the Rationale & Marketing of Consumer Goods in Vietnam and attempt to provide in depth information about various aspects of promotion in Vietnam, to which specific advertising materials illuminate the Vietnam consumer experience.
Maines (2001) in his collection “the technology of orgasm” illuminates the Vietnam consumer experience through an analysis of history of marketing thought. Maines explores both partial and complete loss of consciousness and the reactivity to outside stimuli in her analysis of this topic. According to Heymer, (2008), “an examination of the classical schools of marketing explores the role of social sciences and focuses on aggregate market behavior.” The articles congregate on one theme that the general idea of marketing has recorded a shift from the reliance on other disciples and has changed in its focus.
It has come vividly that most of the companies lack the sensitivity to truly comprehend differences in consumer tastes and preferences. Marketers persistently underestimate the paramount importance of local knowledge when it comes to marketing communication and planning causing insufficient results and the risk of offending consumers. In addition to the above, consumers culture also profoundly impacts the way of doing promotion as it influences consumers. The understanding of concepts of demand theory precipitated the advancement of technology of orgasm and hysteria in marketing. According to Bastel (1962), “this gave way to the managerial school of thought in which focus of attention and understanding shifted to the individual customers while social sciences continued to dominate marketing thinking.” This technological advancement led to an emphasis on the behavioral school of thought with the application of orgasm in marketing revolution.
The articles illuminate the Vietnam consumer experiences in goods through an analysis of specific questions that offer insights as to the evolution of marketing concepts and an understanding of consumerism as a material culture. The dissection of critical questions such as “When did the Vietnam become a consumer society? Has it always been one? Were Vietnamese born to shop? Did they learn to do so? Or were they coerced?” will therefore encompass the analysis of these articles that illuminate the historical experiences of Vietnam culture towards consumer goods. In addition to the above, other crucial questions include; which consumer trends can be observed in Vietnam? What are behavior oriented, psychographic and socio-demographic characteristics of Vietnamese consumers? What consumer groups are most attractive to consumer goods producers?
Problem
It had been experienced recently that the advertisement set in the newspapers suggested that the Vietnam Company advertise only the state of art vibrating electrical appliances. It emphasized on their value with regard to usefulness, comfort, and convenience. While at the same time emphasized on the value for money. In fact companies are not confronted whether to communicate or not, the concerned question is how much to spend on promotion and in what ways. in addition to the above, financial measures were found to have a backward looking focus and had the tendency to focus on the individual or the function, rather than the processes that were core to management
The performance measurement focused on financial measures such as sales turnover, profit, debt, and return on investment. These financial measures were found to be limited in their ability to match entirely with the competencies and skills companies needed to survive in the intensely competitive global world of today
Methodology:
An estimated budget of two thousand pounds will permit us to conduct more primary research than secondary. This information that we will be seeking will represent qualitative and quantitative sections of the paper. Quantitative sections will cover mostly the numerical elements of this research like price while qualitative aspects of this research will be reflected by exploring the consumer experiences mostly concerning the decision making process.
Research methods:
- Purpose:
Type: Simple random sampling, to minimize bias and related errors
Size: 28
Rationale: The economic consequences of ignoring the Rationale & Marketing of Consumer Goods in Vietnam severe. Prior research has shown family characteristics, such as family poverty and parental education, are important determinants of maintaining consumer goods. Moreover, previous research has also shown family background factors affect a consumer’s risk of consumer maltreatment. However, little is known about whether consumer maltreatment has a direct and significant influence on the risk of goods protection, and whether consumer maltreatment mediates the effects of products background.
Qualitative Research:
- Purpose:
In this research paper, inductive research approach strategy will be adopted. Here data will be collected first and later, theories developed after data analysis is carried out. The research conducted will be a clear case of a survey strategy, where a questionnaire will be replicated and the items in the questionnaire measured.
From a review of literature, a survey questionnaire will be developed to collect data for the study. The questionnaire will be issued first on a pilot project basis. The purpose will be to refine the questionnaire so that the respondents will have no problem in answering the questions and there will be no problem in recording the data. Modifications to the questionnaire document will then be effected and then the document issued out to the respondents. The respondents will be required to tick or write brief statements on the document. The questions will mainly focus on issues of core reasons behind the Rationale & Marketing of Consumer Goods in Vietnam. The analytic strategy will be adopted in the analysis of data for strategies of exploratory qualitative studies. Basically, data generated will be analyzed qualitatively. This involved an analysis of the observations generated from the research in depth. Information from the questionnaire responses will be analyzed in depth and the key themes identified and comparisons carried out among the various responses. This essentially will form the basis for making deductions about the problem.
Reflection
It is clear that Vietnam began to seek new strategies to retain their consumers by offering customer service. The innovation of computers, organizations began to streamline customer service techniques. This helped in reducing costs while satisfying their customers. Many organizations were streamlining production and distribution to provide goods to customers faster and at lower costs while attempting to have deep insights into customer characteristics and human weaknesses. One interesting development in advertisements as illustrated by the articles was the articulate use of vibrators in advertisement themes. Increase in demands for vibrators led to the invention of the electrified version.
Driven by the capitalism nature of individualism, the turn of the Vietnam’s culture and description of certain cultural elements led to a marketing shift to an understanding of other disciplines with special emphasis on psychology. According to Sheth, Gardger and Garrett (1985), “economic psychology with its emphasis on customer expectations, clinical psychology with its emphasis on nonfunctional value in products and services, organizational psychology with its emphasis on power and conflict among organizations and social psychology with its emphasis on cognitive consistency as the driver of human behavior became more exciting areas of marketing.” From the toaster to vibrators, the Vietnam consumerism culture presented interesting scenarios that revolved around special emphasis on psychology. Within all this cacophony of consumer behavior, the perception and not the reality that encompassed the desire within customer to respond to a product. It was believed that customers were psychologically driven in their purchasing behavior.
Another important aspect that has been seen as playing a lot of significance is the evolution of Vietnam consumerism and which can be viewed in the lights of the translation of the business strategies for the market place is the gender. This surprisingly defined the manner in which the brand offering will present itself to the market place. This in-turn influenced the manner in which targeted customers think of the offerings, and invariably, the brands image. As The above attributes were seen to be inherently important in determining how well a given product was perceived in the markets. However, in determining how to develop a product in the market, its pre-emptive importance was aimed at encapsulating the deeper insights to human psychology and development intents.
At the beginning Vietnam demand exceeded supply and this precipitated a move by company to change their business strategies in concentrating in selling as many products as they could afford. An understanding of consumer psychology was not as relevant as in the preceding century. In this case, companies did not pay attention to customer and the customer’s needs and requirements. Sheth, Gardger and Garrett (1985), explain that “suppliers focused on product development, manufacturing capacity, and securing distribution outlets, without regard to their consumers”.
However, it was characterized later by changes in economic set-ups gave consumers the power of choice due to excess supply, which exceeded demand. Sheth, Gardger and Garrett (1985) point out that
“The era of the passive consumer was coming to an end. Companies began to find out that their customers were, what they wanted, and how they could be satisfied; they analyzed data about their customers and segmented them based on their demographics, such as age, gender, and other personal information. Then they promoted their product or service to a specific subset of customers and prospects”
The emergence of CRM on the other hand made marketers to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the consumer goods in Vietnam. This was done with two categories; consumer based on long-term period and retention. Moreover, this strategy contributed to cross selling and up-selling (Glickman, 1999). In addition to the above, the dynamics of changing demographics and consumer purchasing patterns, coupled with ever-stronger competition, certainly put increased pressure on marketers to adopt innovative technologies to meet the growing expectations of the consumer. Out of intensive research, marketers chose from a variety of promotional tools and communication channels to deliver efficient message. This has been seen as an opportunity and threat at the same time. “Opportunity, as it allows marketers to precisely target those audiences which are of interest to the company and build closer relationships with them. Also, target audiences can be reached at several.”
In summary, consumer behavior will remain a dilemma in marketing initiatives. However, three areas come to mind after reading and analyzing the manner in which the articles illuminate the Vietnam consumer experience in goods. Globalization presented challenges to marketers and they adopted sustainable strategies in cross cultural and international consumer behavior. Maturing markets demanded better understanding of competitive behavior. Last, there were upsurge of application of behavior modification strategies and less persuasion strategies to effectively adapt to the changing competition and advances in technology.
- Research design:
The survey responses will lead the reader, as well as other educators, to a deeper understanding of the current consumer good culture. Currently, there is an apparent sense of resignation due to a perceived lack of input and voice given the staffs. This study’s results will provide some interesting avenues to pursue for inquiring about professional development, consumer collaboration. In the end, this study emphasizes that Rationale & Marketing of Consumer Goods in Vietnam must remember that in order to improve the economic rates of Vietnam, social change is needed. This change must not only be in words, but also in actions. By beginning initiating a social change, Vietnam can finally, with the right efforts, achieve that longed-for minimum of cross selling and up-selling to upgrade economy and workforce.
