Digital 2022 Global Overview Report published by Hootsuite and We Are Social

Bao Tram: Welcome, Mr. Chuong, to Digital Life!

Chuong Ntk: I’m honored to be here and I’m happy to have this interview with VOV5.

Bao Tram: What are the advantages of digital marketing compared to traditional marketing?

Chuong Ntk: I think digital marketing compared to traditional marketing has three key advantages. The first is cost efficiency because one of the key benefits of digital marketing is the ability to accurately target an audience. So if you open an English center and you want to target only people who live within 8 km of the center, the best tool to do that is digital marketing. The second thing is flexibility. You can easily turn on or turn off a digital campaign with just one click on a computer. A traditional campaign such as a billboard or TV campaign requires days to turn off. During the COVID-19 epidemic, that flexibility of digital marketing campaigns became a crucial thing for businesses to consider. Last but not least, digital marketing is tied to e-commerce, a growing trend in Vietnam. I think it’ll go mainstream very soon and the only way to efficiently advertise e-commerce activities is through digital marketing.

Bao Tram: The COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to turn more to digital marketing. What are the latest digital marketing trends in Vietnam?

Chuong Ntk: I think digital marketing is about 10 years old in Vietnam. Initially people knew it as ‘internet marketing’ or ‘online marketing’. Now the term “digital marketing” is commonly used. In my opinion, there are three key trends right now.

- The first is short video consumption. A familiar example is Tik Tok. Last year Tik Tok became a mainstream channel for the consumption of short videos. And bigger platforms like YouTube and Facebook have created their own short video platforms to compete with Tik Tok. Short video consumption is transforming the way digital users consume content.

- The second trend is due to the problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now every digital marketing effort must measure and optimize the money spent, so a company not only spends money on marketing, but wants to make sure it maximizes its return on investment. That's a challenge for a lot of companies in Vietnam, because the tools needed to measure return on investment are not yet perfected.

- The third trend is creativity and personalization. In the last 7 or 8 years digital marketing activities in Vietnam have focused on paid media like Facebook and Google ads. But since hey got so focused on paid media that some companies totally forgot about creativity. That's going to become very important in the next few years. Paid media is already reaching consumers at home. They can’t improve that any more. So creativity, the kind of content you create for consumers, and how personalized it is, will determine how appropriate and appealing it will be to those consumers.

Nguyen Thuy Khanh Chuong, Strategic Director of aDigit Asia

Bao Tram: What do you think of Vietnam’s digital marketing potential?  

Chuong Ntk: Vietnam is a young country. It has a young population. The strong penetration of mobile phones and wide Internet coverage is ideal for the growth of digital marketing. I think, in the coming years, second-tier cities in Vietnam, which are smaller but growing in their population of digital users, will provide the next push to the digital market in Vietnam.

Bao Tram: Now that the pandemic is under control, how will digital marketing change in the post-COVID-19 period?

Chuong Ntk: What we saw right after the pandemic was that people had acquired an e-commerce habit. A lot of people now realize they can buy everything online. They don't have to go to the store anymore. Businesses are now reluctant to invest in expensive stores. E-commerce has become more and more mainstream. I think that trend will grow. It may never replace traditional retail, but it’s going to take a much larger share of total sales. And since sales and marketing go together, online sales means digital marketing.

Bao Tram: Thank you, Mr. Chuong for granting VOV this interview and giving us an overview of digital marketing in Vietnam.

Chuong Ntk: Thank you for inviting me. I was happy to be here to share my thoughts.