Close ties between press and business help further promote national brands: Chairman of Journalists Association
WVR - Honouring brands make brand names to be known to public, however, in order to go farther, brands need the support from communication and press, Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association Le Quoc Minh said during his cordial discussion with The World &Vietnam Report about this supporting relationship.
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| Chairman of Vietnam Journalists Association Le Quoc Minh - on supporting relationship between press and businesses. (Source: WVR) |
Honouring national brands
Regarding activities of honouring national brands in recent times, Mr. Minh said that the Vietnam National Brand Program is a specific, long-term and unique trade promotion program of the Government on building and developing national brands, which has been approved by the Prime Minister since 2003.
One of the tasks assigned by the Prime Minister is to raise social awareness about the role, meaning and necessity of building, protecting and developing brands in production, business and investment activities; raising awareness and promoting the Vietnam National Brand Program and National Brand products with the aim of building the image of Vietnam as a reputable country with high quality goods and services, contributing to the development of foreign trade and improve competitiveness.
According to Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association Minh, this program is a very meaningful program, through which good brands are officially recognized and honored, creating trust for consumers, as well as potential partners.
On the occasion of Vietnamese Entrepreneurs' Day October 13, Nhan Dan Newspaper (The People's Newspaper) published a special edition with the theme "Joining efforts to create National Brand" in print and digital version. Nhan Dan Newspaper is also coordinating with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to build a large-scale National Brand site, with a lot of data on brands and businesses.
Orientation role of the press
With regards to the orientation role by the press to support domestic manufacturing enterprises, Mr. Minh stressed that in today's digital era, businesses can completely set up information channels to promote their activities without having to rely entirely on the press as before. We have seen many businesses effectively operate websites and channels on social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, etc. and they can reach consumers directly. Even for many large businesses, the content they directly provide has become a source of information for the press.
However, the press has maintained certain credibility, especially the mainstream media. Once the press publishes a particular incident or phenomenon, society often takes it as a source of information of the issue.
Therefore, more than ever, in a context of information overload, sometimes with a lot of chaotic, false, and distorted information, the press must return to its core values: That is honesty, fairness, balance, which means that journalists must work professionally in a modern style while all information must be evaluated through many sources.
When it comes to information, speed is important, but quality cannot be compromised to compete on speed. A posted incorrect information, sometimes just a few words in the entire article, could harm a large enterprise with many thousands of employees, as well as an unverified information might also cause the collapse of an entire sector.
Therefore, the press must take lead in fighting, criticizing, and exposing wrong and illegal activities, but also need to praise businesses and entrepreneurs who have made great contributions to society.
The press should not paint in rosy, but also should not blacken the society, therefore, it needs not publish too much critical content and forget to cover good people and good deeds in the life. And the orientation role of the press lies in reporting real life, not only carry out media compaign or advertising contracts for businesses.
The role of mainstream media
Regarding role of mainstream media in introducing products or activities of Vietnamese businesses, Mr. Minh noted that many Vietnamese businesses, especially small and medium - sized enterprises, still do not pay due attention to communication activities. Maybe, it's because of their lack of human resources or lack of funds, but partly it's also a matter of awareness of the importance of the media. Only when problems emerge in production and business activities, or what we often call a "communication crisis" occurring, will businesses rush to deploy countermeasures, which often lead to expensive costs, spending many resources.
In fact, it is the moment when we operate at our best that we must do the strongest communication, not only to introduce our good products and services to society, but also to prevent in advance the times when there will happen "incidents". If there is a lot of positive information circulating in advance, negative information will be neutralized later, thus proactively reducing the negative impact. If there has never been any information before, when an incident occurs, consumers searching online find only information about that specific negative incident.
However, to choose any particular communication strategy and how to implement it completely depends on the business. The Vietnam Journalists Association and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) have a coordination agreement, which emphasizes on the support for VCCI, as well as its members in media activities. Moreover, I would like to reaffirm that communication activities must stem from the specific needs of enterprises and the leaders of those enterprises.
Whether it is a large or small-scale enterprise, it all needs to pay attention to communication and depends on its resources to "make the difference". Of course, without finance, it is difficult to do communication activities, however, please note that spending a large amount of money on communication also does not mean it will be more effective.
Even with press agencies, we also encourage finding more effective and flexible ways to communicate for businesses rather than writing articles in the old way. Media content must be considered as a special product that requires investment in differentiation to attract the attention of businesses.
International aspects of the support by the press
Regarding international aspects of the support the press can do for a national brand to promote abroad, Mr. Minh emphasized that becoming a national brand depends on the capacity of the business. However, a national brand is not naturally known to domestic and recognized by international consumers in the traditional way of thinking that “Good wine needs no bush”.
Among the countless "good wines" provided by many products, services and brands in the market, in order to bring "good wine" to go farther, you need to have a tool to advertize, in other words, to use external communication parallel with the direct marketing methods of the business.
In addition to the traditional and classic way of cooperation between the press and businesses, in the current digital information era, every press agency, which has a cooperative relationship or coordination with one/several enterprises in the production and business sector, it is necessary to build unique communication product with unique identities, targeting specific market and audience. There are media content/products for all social strata and all readers, however, it is also a need to create specific product aiming at niche markets.
Press and media technology is currently very diverse and there will be many new technologies and new platforms born. The press and businesses need to know how to take advantage of such new communication technologies.
Foreign language is also an important issue, although modern technology has somewhat helped reducing the language barrier. However, if you want to go to international market, you must at least make content in English, although English alone is not necessarily enough. There are many large communities which do not consider English as their main language, such as French Spanish, Chinese speaking communities.
Thank you!
(translated My Anh)
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