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According to YouGov BrandIndex data, e-commerce was the most successful of all product categories, with companies recording strong scores on both ad awareness and word-of-mouth metrics.
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Shopee had the greatest ad awareness and the highest word-of-mouth score.
Tết is a time for families across Vietnam to come together. Before the Lunar New Year, millions of people leave big cities and travel to their hometowns to share traditional food, gifts, and celebrations with their friends and relatives.
For brands, there is another important Tết tradition: advertising. With people spending more during this important time, companies hope to put themselves at the heart of the Lunar New Year celebrations. For this reason, businesses wanting to boost brand awareness and grow market share invest in advertising. These campaigns aim to associate products with Tết in the minds of Vietnamese consumers. But in an ever-more competitive advertising space, which brands stood out from the crowd?
Who won the race for Tết consumer attention?
With people now spending and shopping online more than ever before, YouGov tracked the financial and e-commerce brands that had the biggest impact on consumers during Tết. Throughout January, we asked thousands of people in Vietnam which brands they had talked about with their friends and relatives (known as ‘word-of-mouth’) and which advertisements they had seen during that month (‘ad awareness’).
Overall, Shopee had the greatest ad awareness during Tết. The e-commerce platform reached over half of the respondents (52.7%) through its advertising campaigns. Perhaps, for this reason, Shopee also had the highest word-of-mouth score, with almost half (46.6%) of people talking about the brand with their friends and families.
The data comes from YouGov BrandIndex. This unique platform gathers the opinions of thousands of consumers in real-time. Every day, we ask people what they think about almost 30,000 brands worldwide to give actionable insight into changing consumer preferences and market trends.
E-commerce was the most successful of all product categories, according to YouGov BrandIndex data, with companies recording strong scores on both metrics. Lazada came a close second, reaching almost half (48.3%) of consumers with its advertising campaigns and over a third of people (34.2%) talking about it with their loved ones. However, social commerce platforms such as TikTok and Facebook fared less well during Tết. TikTok reached just over a quarter of consumers (27.5%) through direct advertising campaigns and a similar proportion (24.2%) through organic word-of-mouth.
Tough competition in banking and insurance
While there was an outright winner in e-commerce, banking brands were much closer in terms of their ad penetration. Vietcombank took the top spot, reaching just over a quarter of consumers (26.3%) with its ad campaigns. However, competitors BIDV (25.2%), MB Bank (23.5%), Sacombank (21.8%), and Vietinbank (20.5) were all close behind.
It was a similar picture for word-of-mouth conversations. Vietcombank was the most talked about banking brand during Tết, but there were fewer than eight points between first and fifth places in the rankings.
Likewise, insurers struggled to stand out from the crowd during Tết. For ad awareness, less than two points separated Manulife (8.1%) in the first place from Dai-ichi Life (6.3%) in the fifth. Word-of-mouth scores in the insurance sector tell a similar story. First-placed BaoViet Life (7.4%) sits just above second-placed Manulife (6.3%) and third-placed Prudential (5%) in a crowded field.
A clear winner in the digital wallet space
Turning to digital wallets, MoMo was the clear winner for ad awareness, reaching 40.1% of consumers. Like the other categories, there was a strong relationship between effective advertising and organic conversations. MoMo also topped the digital wallet word-of-mouth rankings, reaching around one-third (33.9%) of people. Meanwhile, ZaloPay finished a strong second in the digital wallet space, reaching almost one-third of consumers (29.2%) through ad campaigns and over a quarter (25.6%) through word-of-mouth.
Know the audience to grow the audience
This data from YouGov BrandIndex shows that companies with the strongest ad awareness also tend to have the highest organic word-of-mouth reach. Of course, correlation does not necessarily equal causation. But we know that effective ad campaigns get people talking. This shows the importance of standing out from the crowd and building brand awareness during Tết when companies are in ever-greater competition for consumer attention.
YouGov BrandIndex gives companies a unique insight into what consumers think, enabling them to better target their ad campaigns and create organic conversations. For more information about the YouGov BrandIndex, or to run your own research, contact us today.
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