Two Communications Events You Should Not Miss

Yesterday I wrote about a planned marketing event for spring of next year, that if goes as explained, with be the communications equivalent of a used car salesman's convention. The next two events won't. Make sure not to miss them.

The Big Show

This year The Big Show will be part of the Vietnam Advertising Festival, organized by Sunflower Media . The official opening ceremony of The Big Show will start at 6pm Friday 10th, Dec 2010, and will showcase the best creative work from Vietnam's top advertising & marketing agencies. The venue will be The Zoo, Thao Cam Vien.


Barcamp Saigon

BarCamp is a user-generated event — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on technology as well as teaching and learning. Sunday, December 12th, 2010 From 8:00a.m to 05:00p.m. RMIT International University. 702, Nguyen Van Linh Str., District 7, Ho Chi Minh City.

Both events are free, and that's truly good news in a market where professional conference organizers come in, put on a lackluster show, and then leave with all the profits. Both these events not only come from the creative community but give back to it in inspirational and educational ways.

Finally, after years of competing unsuccessfully, the Big Show and the Golden Bell Awards will now exhibit together under the banner of the Vietnam Advertising Festival. Organized by Sun Flower Media, this event promises to showcase the best advertising work of the city at a venue that truly gets the Young Lions inspired. The Zoo. - Correction: The Golden Bell Awards, organized by The Vietnam Advertising Association, will not be participating. Why not? I don't know. They did two years ago. Another mystery only the VAA can answer.

Barcamp is a more unusual and not really marketing oriented event. Most geeks will know it as a good place for geeks - but I attended the first event two years ago and found it inspiring creatively. No big star speakers, no awards, but a truly collaborative environment that sparked thought and inspiration.

Do give these two event your full attention. They'll both be better than any profit making conference coming into town anytime soon.

What's Wrong With The Vietnamese Advertising Association? - How Not To Market in Asia II

A scan of articles on the state of the Vietnamese Advertising Market over the last few months reveals one thing: Somebody can't get the numbers right. And that somebody is the industry's guiding body, the Vietnam Advertising Association.

For instance - How many advertising firms are there in Vietnam?

This article says 3000. And the next one says 3000 as well. But this one says 6000. And yet another says 7000. So how many firms is it really and what is considered an "advertising firm"?

And, how large is the market?

One story says $500 million. The next story says $1 Billion. Another only $31 million (are US bankers doing the counting around here?) And finally, a projection for the market in 2020 reaches a lofty $3 billion. But who really knows? Not the Vietnam Advertising Association, that's for sure, because all the numbers you see quoted above have been attributed to them according to the various publications.

But the one thing the VAA seems to hold a rock-hard consistency on is it's dislike for foreign companies in the business. Just take a look at the headlines below and you tell me if this supposed Trade Association is really representing the industry or just Vietnamese owned companies in the industry? It's embarrassing. For a nation that prides itself on greater and greater FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) numbers, year after year, the VAA has succeeded, in just a few short months and stories, in becoming the poster child for How Not to Market in Asia. Want to scare foreign companies away from investing in Vietnam? The VAA can help.

Imagine if the Banking Association started going after foreign banks - or the Construction Association started complaining about all the foreign money coming in, in the form of real estate development from - oh dear - other countries!

80% of industry profit falls into foreign hands - said Tran Quy Cap, Chairman of HCM City Advertisement Firms’ Association.

VietNamNet - A report on the 3-year implementation of the Advertisement Ordinance released recently by the Ministry of Culture and Information said that despite limitations on foreign ownership in the field of advertising, he number of domestic firms that have a foothold in the market remains modest, while the majority focus on organising events or printing. More than 3,000 advertisement firms are licensed to operate in Vietnam; however, 80% of profit falls into the hands of foreign companies.

Advertising: Profits Go To Foreign Pockets

VietNamNet – Vietnam has over 3,000 advertising companies but their turnover is still modest. Tran Nguyet Dan, Deputy Chairman cum Secretary General of the Vietnam Advertising Association (VAA) comments on this issue.

There are nearly 6,000 advertising firms in Vietnam.(according to VAA) “Of the more than US$1 billion of annual revenues from advertising activities in Vietnam, local firms account for 10-20%. Over 80% belong to several big foreign advertising groups,” said Do Kim Dung, Vice Chairman of the HCM City Association of Advertising, General Director of the An Tiem Advertising Company.

Foreign advertising companies now dominate up to 70% of the advertising market in Vietnam

VietNamNet - According to VAA, more than 7,000 advertising companies currently employ nearly 100,000 people, but many of them should take refresher and advanced courses to meet the professional requirements. Foreign advertising companies now dominate up to 70% of the advertising market in Vietnam. The industry’s revenue is projected to reach some US$3 billion by 2020, with local firms accounting for 50-60%.

VnBusinessNews - Total turnover for the Vietnamese advertising industry is currently around US$500 million. Presently, there are 7,000 companies licensed to do business as advertisers throughout Viet Nam.

Marketing-InteractiveNews - According to the Vietnam Advertising Association, Vietnam's ad and internet industry is expected to hit US$31 million by 2010 from US$10 million in 2007. There are currently 3000 companies in the advertising business.

Shortsighted, unfair and wildly unprofessional. Have I refrained from calling them crazy deranged fools yet? Oh, but wait. It seems the VAA have some experience in this area already. Take a look at this story from 2002. Yes, you can actually buy this story from a news service for $9.95. It's almost as if they were taking lesson's from the music industry by trying to sue their customers.


Vietnam Advertising Association launched fresh argument against investment license to foreign ad firm J Walter Thompson.

464 word report - published Jul 29, 2002

And on the battle goes on. Pointlessly. They forget to mention that the companies involved employ Vietnamese people and put quite a bit more than Ban on the table for thousands. They neglect the fact that the agencies didn't ship a few thousand Europeans and Americans in for the work and that the handful of foreigners who are here, pay Vietnamese landlords, eat Vietnamese food and drive vehicles bought and possibly made in Vietnam. And that's not even counting the beer. Vietnamese beer. The association also misses the training and more than significant technology transfer made by these firms towards the betterment of the entire industry, and country, and they seem almost blindly oblivious to the fact that the WPP group is a 30% shareholder in Vietnam's largest advertising company, DatViet VAC (Vietnam Advertising Corporation), which is still government controlled and also has a relationship with DDB, an American agency.

So you must wonder - What do they do at the meetings? But rather than speculate about what unsavory buggery might go on, I'd like to focus on what they should be doing at their meetings.

1) They should revise their charter - Whatever the hell is in their current charter certainly isn't helpful to the business at large. They should aim to serve the entire industry with a real special emphasis on the word serve. Do they really think a foreign company wants to join a body that spends a great deal of its time fighting them? They should be Brand Provocateurs for every advertiser and agency be they local, foreign or Martian.

2) They should aim to recruit the top agencies as members - Since the VAA doesn't have a website it's impossible to understand who is a member and who is not, but the last information I saw, at the Vietnam Advertising Festival, listed Dentsu as the only foreign agency. With O&M and JWT as big winners at the show and WPP affiliates, it shouldn't be much of a push to get them in as members, so long as nobody pulls their chairs out from under them at the big table. Also, oddly missing are the big local agencies, DatViet VAC and Golden Group. Somebody should be all over that.

3) They should stay on message - One look at the selection of news stories above and the plethora of people delivering the message is enough to understand why the numbers are always messed up. Figure out what the numbers are, and stay on message. They'll stand a much better chance of getting complicated regulations through a fairly dim body of lawmakers if the bureaucrats aren't totally perplexed by the numbers.

4) They should publish the numbers - I was contacted by a journalist lately from Media Magazine in HK because my blog was the most frequent result to a Google search for VAA. That's pretty sad. The journalist had commented that Thailand had a good site set up with facts and figures that advertisers, agencies and media companies could use as reference. Vietnam could use that and it should be the charge of VAA make that information transparent and accessible.

5) They should get a new logo - It's on the poster behind the people at the table.


This post isn't something that I sat up nights thinking about - rather it came after months of collecting stories and then realizing that the organization set up to bring some order and respect to the business was engaged in a concentrated effort to keep it divided - and I couldn't figure out, to what end? To be as fair as possible, it does seem that the multi-nationals won the lion's share of awards at the Golden Bells this year, indicating that the judging had a fairness that might not have been expected, considering the VAA's recent media output. Maybe that's a start.

To learn more about Brand Marketing Training in Vietnam, go here.

For more in the "How Not To Market In Asia" series, click below:

I) The Importance of Time, Money, Quality and Knowing How Much of Each You Need to Succeed

III) Detri-viral Marketing: When Web 2.0 works against your brand

The Vietnam Advertising Festival: Young Lions Stage a Coup at the Zoo

Thank the young lions, for making a day at the zoo a real hot spot for the future of Vietnam Advertising. The Young Lions are a group of young ad professionals who exhibited their work at the Vietnam Advertising Festival held at the Ho Chi Minh City Zoo on Friday and Saturday of this last week - sponsored by the Vietnam Advertising Association and Sunflower Media. In keeping with my review of The BIG SHOW a few weeks ago, I'll continue the format of dividing this piece up into it's respective parts of The venue, The work, The participants and The result. These are basically what make up an advertising industry event and aside from your opinion, and there are many, probably what one experiences in the final evaluation.

The venue:

If you had your choice of cages between the ones featured at The Cage Bar, where the BIG SHOW was hosted, or the ones at the HCMC Zoo, go for the zoo. Providing a walking boulevard approach, flanked by banners and posters for the event, the entrance to the zoo both calms and excites as visitors are drawn in to what ends up as a small stage surrounded by viewing areas for the exhibits with not a cage to be found in the proximity. On this promenade, jugglers, caligraphers and graphiti artists line the walks and invite the guests to interact with the event whilst the strains of a punk band screetch through a rapid-fire rendition of Jingle Bells - not particularly original but a certainly spirited rendition. My trip to the zoo occured on Saturday afternoon, so avoiding the Friday start and pontificating and officiating that so often go along with these things was probably a good idea.

Once drawn to the viewing area the "festival" as it was billed, divided itself up into three distinct display areas for three distincly different shows, starting with the Vietnam Young Lions exhibit, an exploration on recyclable, reusable and decidedly green concepts, organized by Sunflower Media. This for me was the absolute highlight of the entire event, in terms of actual work, and I'm only sorry that neither the Young Lions website nor a non-existing website for Sunflower is able to show you any of the work. Photos and bios of the participating teams were shown, the TVs worked well to show the film concepts, and the work was presented at a size that made it a joy to view - BIG - not little bitty double-truck ads lost on a wall of white space.

The second and least thoughtfully designed area was designated for the Vietnam Advertising Association's Golden Bell awards and overall I found it a boxy disappointment. None of the TVs were working and most of the smallishly mounted ads lacked appropriate translations for the International audience they sought to attract through the Saigon Times.

The third area, with large format image-changing kiosks at it's center, was home to the Cannes Lion winners of 2008. Packed full of inspiring work and all images of museum display size and quality things were easy to understand and enjoy. Also, all the credits and detail information for the winning work appeared in both English and Vietnamese.

The work:

The Young Lions were the hit of the show in my book. Hopefully their website will be able to show the great number of excellent concepts that went into their environmental campaigns. It seems also that props should go to Sunflower Media for coraling, scheduling and presenting this effort in an extremely professional manner. My favorite ad excecution involved a shot of a discarded Pepsi can and a string of copy solutions as to what the can could become after it's life as a softdrink dispenser, including, last but not least - a can of Coca Cola. Refuse reincarnation in the ultimate sense.

Looking at the Golden Bells presentation left me wondering what I was missing. Where was the Child Helmet Campaign described in winning announcements and where in the hell were the Vietnamese advertising agencies? Aside from one of the judges describing to me that the jurying was "surprisingly non-political" and impartial, is someone going to tell me that not a single entry from Golden, Storm-Eye or Dat Viet (VAC) could make the cut? Methinks not. I suspect that, just as last year, many agencies did not even enter the show and that could have been due to high fees, political wrangling of thousands of egos, or simple lack of proper timing and promotion on behalf of the organising committee. This year the Golden Bells were held in stealth fashion and only allowed to be viewed through the prism of an edited and time delayed TV program that could not have done much to have encouraged the comaraderie, competition and cohesiveness that are very much needed in the industry now. The presentation at the zoo did nothing to advance the prestige of the event nor to encourage agencies to enter in the future. Rather than looking like something one wanted to be a part of, it looked alone, incomplete and uncared for. None of the TVs worked and aside from a guestbook one could sign had no interactivity whatsoever. What about computer to highlight digital work? What about a website for the sponsoring organization or the show itself? Nuff said.

What can one say about Cannes winning work? Plenty, but suffice to say it was all inspiring on different levels and made one just want to work a whole hellovalot harder starting immediately - or get a brain upgrade - immediately. What stood out for me were the two print campaigns from Saatchi and Saatchi Vietnam. World class work being done right under our noses and not a peep out of the Golden Bells about it. Something doesn't add up there. The Cu Chi Museum campaign scored on the marriage of art and copy and whilst I didn't think there was much breakthrough in the Western Union campaign when I saw it at the BIG SHOW, I can understand what the judges liked about it and agree with them. The message of the Canne presentation this year was simple: You can do world-calss work right here in Vietnam.

A few years ago our agency, CarlsonCreative, in Seoul brought the New York Art Directors Show into town because we had gotten one tiny little bit of direct mail in it. We comandeered an art gallery for a week, got all the press and TV out and pretty much put it in the big agency's faces - Cheil, O&M, JWT and the like that a little 4 person shop could score on Madison Avenue. During the show the gallery owner came up to me and asked "How come none of the big agencies have ever brought a show this big to town and you did?" "Because we can", I answered, "because we can". Saatchi has just fired a warning shot over the bow of all the agencies in town. Because they can. Will anyone take the bait?

The participants:

The Vietnam Advertising Association: Huge points for just getting this thing off the ground and making a real go at promoting, educating and stirring the fire up in the business. Many points subtracted for poor promotion, no website and a fragmented effort on the Golden Bells.

The Young Lions: I've said enough already. I hope they just keep doing.

Sunflower Media: Although it's hard to know where where responsibilities begin and end between large groups of people, it's obvious that Sunflower's attention on the Young Lions effort was right where it needed to be. Professionnal and on target. But they need a website. Hello 2009?

The result:

The results of the efforts, I suspect, will result in the country becoming the most professional it has ever been in the industry - you could see it in the faces and comments of the students who attended the show, shot the hell out of it with their cel-phones, and wrote in the guest books. Maybe I missed all the big agency big-wigs by attending on a breezy Saturday afternoon Instead of a Friday morning but luckily the breeze was not blowing from the elephant house, so the amount of crap I had to deal with was probably significantly less than I would have, had I allowed a bunch of agency blokes to chat me up.

In the future it would be nice to see a morphing of this event and the Golden Bells together. It seems unessessary to do an event for filming and an event for attending. Last years Bells were a horrible TV taping affair with a house full of bussed-in college students - enough to fill a wide angle lense and essentially nobody in the industry was there unless they were getting an award. I can't imagine this year was any different. Put on a good event, film it, reality show style and I'm sure a talented TV producer can cut it all up into a watchable hour- minus the gawdy dance routines.

As far as the educational aspects and being able to bring creative interaction into the scene during the year, I am working with a group of talented individuals from all around the industry, with a particular focus on Internet and digital. Hopefully we be able to get our first event off in the spring and augment this excellent starting effort. If you have ideas or would like to contribute, please do let me know.