The campaign is also designed to defend the company against accusations of product impurities, said Tran Bao Minh, deputy GM of Vina-milk. “Late last year, the liquid meals industry, including milk producers, received a lot of bad press that suggested our products were made from powder and water,” he said.
“There is a very emotional side to this campaign. We want to show how Vinamilk supports farmers and works hard to bring the best possible nutrition to urban Vietnamese.”
Minh invited journalists to visit Vinamilk factories. “We wanted to show them how much we have invested in new technology to produce 100 per cent fresh milk. As a result, two documentaries were filmed about us, and many articles written,” Minh said. “We created a genuine buzz about the brand.”
A Lowe-devised campaign targets mothers and children through TV, print, posters, merchandising and sampling. The TVC features singing, dancing ‘happy cows’. “The idea was to build a connection between farmers in rural areas and consumers in the cities,” Minh said.
Lowe Vietnam MD Sabya-sachi Mishra added: “Most of the branding in the milk category is very old-school, attribute-oriented, over-jargonised and boring. We spotted a branding opportunity that was just the opposite — honest, engaging, entertaining and childlike in its simplicity.”
Vinamilk dominates Vietnam’s milk product industry with 75 per cent of the market. It recently announced plans to distribute beer through a partnership with SABMiller.
