Respecting customers – Key to building foundation of brands
WVR - Overseas Vietnamese in Japan Nigita Hanh had a discussion with the World and Vietnam Report about the issue of building a national brand, including the field of culture and arts, and sharing her account on branding experiences of the Land of the Rising Sun.
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| Respecting customers – Key to building foundation of brands: Overseas Vietnamese Nigita Hanh at the commemorating event. (Photo: Courtesy) |
How do you evaluate Vietnam's national brand products?
In my opinion, nowadays, Vietnamese brands in general are relatively good in terms of quality and aesthetics. However, we should have better quality products and better advertising methods. Brand promotion also needs to be more sophisticated and attractive because we are not only selling domestically but targeting the international market.
Therefore, national brand products are the face, spirit, and culture of the country expressed in the goods. When customers approach Vietnamese national products, we need to make them feel the culture and spirit of the country and Vietnamese people embedded in the products. If we can do that, we will be successful. That why national brand products are the face and cultural spirit of the country expressed in the products! Moreover, we need to refine it systematically, bring aesthetics and culture into the products, so that users can feel the image of the country and people of Vietnam.
Japan is one of the countries which excel at branding national products with big names such as Toyota, Sony, Uniqlo, Panasonic, Nintendo, etc. As an overseas Vietnamese in Japan doing in business field, could you please share branding experience of Japanese businesses?
Japan possesses many well-known brands because when manufacturing a product for society, Japanese manufacturers put their dedication as the top priority. They think that a good product can only serve people successfully once consumers value it as worthy of the money they spend to buy it. Japanese manufacturers also take great pride in making their consumers happy with the true value of their products.
Japanese people highly respect consumers and to strengthen their brand, they pay great attention to maximizing product quality. This character is also the personality and culture of Japan, Japanese people, and especially Japanese businesses. The people here also believe that only with businesses can there be success, and only with competition can they build a prosperous society for the country.
Particularly, the people of this country have an exceptional patriotic spirit, thus they desire to put into every product intellectual content. They sell to consumers who have demands, and give thoughtful instructions to them.
Vietnamese businesses are mainly small and medium. Could you please share some examples of branding practices of small businesses in Japan that Vietnam can refer to?
Personally, I see that the production scale of most Vietnamese enterprises is still small, largely manual and the factory scale is also small. Therefore, we have not been able to apply modern machinery. With the current economic situation, that is understandable since only a few businesses that do not grow from a small scale. However, we still must always focus on quality in all stages of the product. If you can do that, even though the production is small, the product brand will still spread and make a name for the business in the marketplace.
Furthermore, if the brand consistently attaches with the morality of the manufacturer, with the dedication of the people making products to serve their society, the brand will always maintain its solid position on the market regardless of small-scale production.
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| Overseas Vietnamese Nigita Hanh - Ngo Thi Bich Hanh |
Culture and art is a field that seems not difficult but still is not easy to promote. In your opinion, what could we learn from the way the Japanese create brands in this field?
Japanese people pay great attention to promoting the country's culture and history. You can notice time-honored images of both people and landscapes! They are not flashy but very realistic when making historical film programs about dynasties associated with product lines that the Japanese created at that time. In that context, they still preserve their ancient culture in the context of an ever-evolving modern culture and seek to reconcile tradition and modernity. This makes Japanese culture diverse and very well preserved.
The Japanese preserve ancient temples very well. They even preserved the area where their ancestors worked. The Japanese landscape is beautiful and very unique, it cannot be mixed with anywhere else. They have a very friendly, thoughtful and warm demeanor. This makes visitors from all over come to Japan once and want to come again and again. The way they promote respect in all aspects of social life, respect for roots, respect for culture, respect for consumers, respect for tourists... is the way Japanese people bring their culture to life. spread continuously.
The Japanese preserve their ancient temples very well. They even preserve the working area of their ancestors. The Japanese landscape is so beautiful and truly unique that it cannot be mixed with landscape of anywhere else. Japanese people have a very friendly, thoughtful, and warm demeanor. This makes visitors from all over come to Japan once and want to come back again and again. The way they promote respect in all aspects of social life, such as respect for their roots, culture, consumers, and tourists is the way Japanese people bring their culture to life and spread it continuously.
| Overseas Vietnamese in Japan Nigita Hanh - Ngo Thi Bich Hanh: - Director of the Vietnam-Japan Cultural Research Institute. - Chairman of Nigita Japan High Technology Investment Joint Stock Company - Chairman of the Board of Directors of ANNA PROBIO VIETNAM JSC Joint Stock Company - Senior Executive Advisor of Vietnam-Japan Business Association - Senior Advisor of the Japan Culture & Health Association She received many Certificates of Merit, and Letters of Thanks from various domestic and foreign organizations. She has successfully organized many events, among them, most recently the Cultural Exchange commemorating the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam-Japan diplomatic relations at the Opera House in March 2023. |
(Translated by Bui Thi My Anh)
