VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI SCHOOL OF BUSINESS TRAN THI CHIEN A STUDY ON CONNECTED MARKETING AND THE CASE OF FPT CORPORATION’S PROJECT VICONGDONG Major: Business Administration Code: 60 34 05 MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS Supervisors: Dr. TRAN DOAN KIM Hanoi – 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.viii LIST OF TABLES.ix LIST OF FIGURES.
1 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW– CONNECTED MARKETING.1 Definition: Connected Marketing. Types of Connected Marketing.1 Word of mouth marketing.3 The power of Connected marketing in digital age.1 Widely connection between the company/organization and customer .2 Building customer’s trust.3 Cutting marketing cost.4 Measuring communication result.1 Ways of transferring information.5 The process to practice a Connected Marketing Campaign.1 Customer investigation and choosing Opinion leaders (OL).2 Creating transferred messages.4 Spreading a Connected Marketing Campaign.1 Transferring information principles.2 Method of transferring information.6 Measurement of transferring information. 37 CHAPTER 2: EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS AND CONNECTED MARKETING ACTIVITY OF VICONGDONG.1 External environment analysis.1 Conditions for the application of Connected Marketing activity in Vietnam .2 Analysis on charity activities in Vietnam.2 Connected Marketing activity at Vicongdong. Introduction about Vicongdong project.2 Condition for Vicongdong doing Connected Marketing.3 Analysis on Connected Marketing activities in Vicongdong project.3 Some comments on the efficiency of Connected Marketing Campaign at Vicongdong project 85 CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS.1 Developing direction of business and Marketing strategy of Visky – FPT .2 Developing new marketing solution.3 Some other proposals.109 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AMA : American Marketing Association C2C : Customer-to-Customer CEO : Chief Executive Officer CPC : Cost Per Click CSR : Corporate Social Responsibility CTR : Click Through Ratio G.A : Google Analytics NGO : Non-Governmental Organization OL : Opinion leader OPA : Online Publisher Association WOM : Word of Mouth WOMMA : Word of Mouth Marketing Association viii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Statistics on Vicongdong.vn Page 90 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: An example of a social network diagram Page 5 Figure 1.2: Ordering Icecards process.
Source: Icemedia Company Page 10 Figure 1.3: The comparison between Buzz marketing and Traditional Page 13 marketing Figure 1.4: Ways of transferring and receiving information before Page 21 and now Figure 1.5: Traditional marketing model Page 22 Figure 1.6: The modern marketing model Page 24 Figure 1.5: Models of media influence Page 33 Figure 2.1: Internet users in Vietnam during 2004 – 2009 Page 40 Figure 2.2: Age of Internet user vs. total population Page 41 Figure 2.3: Occupation of Internet user Page 42 Figure 2.4: Online activities done in the past Page 43 Figure 2.5: Frequency of Internet usage by city Page 44 Figure 2.6: Website visited in 4 weeks from October to November Page 45 Figure 2.7: Website visited in 4 weeks from October to November Page 45 by classifying Figure 2.8: Website visited in 4 weeks from October to November Page 46 by age Figure 2.9: Attitudes toward social connection Page 46 Figure 2.10: Websites used for social online network Page 47 Figure 2.11: Favorite websites for information gathering Page 48 Figure 2.12: Favorite websites for entertainment Page 48 Figure 2.13: Favorite websites for communication Page 48 Figure 2.14: Organization model of Visky FPT Page 54 Figure 2.15: Vicongdong’s logo Page 56 Figure 2.16: Logo of Blue Ribbon Employer Council Page 57 Figure 2.17: Message for communication campaign in “Mầm Nhân Page 58 ái 2008” contest Figure 2.18: Logo of “Chim én 2009” Page 59 Figure 2.19: Logo of “Ngày cuối tuần ấm áp” Page 59 Figure 2.20: Logo of the contest “ Viết vì cộng đồng” Page 59 Figure 2.21: Logo of the contest: “Mầm nhân ái” Page 67 Figure: 2.22: Communication for the Award “Chim én” Page 67 Figure 2.23: Alexa statistics on vicongdong.vn Page 84 ix Figure 2.24: Alexa statistics – Up stream sites of Vicongdong.vn Page 84 Figure 2.25: Alexa statistics –Down stream sites of Vicongdong.vn Page 85 Figure 2.26: Alexa Statistic - Daily pageviews per user of Page 88 vicongdong.1: A sample of an ecard on Vithiep.vn Page 92 Figure 3.2: Topology model - Source: Marketing Department, Visky Page 96 FPT Figure 3.3: Fractural marketing at FPT Page 97 Figure 3.4: Creating communication message Page 98 Figure 3.5: An example of Google Analytics Page 103 Figure 3.6: An example of Google Analytics using campaigns Page 104 Figure 3.7a: A sample of the new marketing solution Page 104 Figure 3.7b: A sample of a new campaign - Choose a cause Page 105 Figure 3.8: A sample of a new campaign - Supporter chooses Page 105 Colgate as your sponsor Figure 3.9: A sample of a new campaign - On supporter’s profile Page 106 x INTRODUCTION The problem Firstly, Vicongdong has no clear and long time marketing plan. There are only some separate activities which have not related tightly to FPT Corporation. Whereas FPT fund is a fund used to implement FPT’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Vicongdong plays the most important role to its CSR.vn is only a website used Web technology 2.
Its propagation or distribution may reach much more than geometrical progression. It means that the connection will be certainly crucial. Finally, FPT’s managers wish to create a result of much more than 1 $ when they invest 1 $ for donation (1.x effect) and no longer want to use traditional way to do CSR. However, the results that Vicongdong has harnessed have not shown the expectation.
There has not yet had any fundraising solution. Objectives The thesis has been much spent time on it with the objective of studying the theory of connected marketing and then study the case of Vicongdong in marketing field. Vicongdong is a for-runner project of Visky –FPT in plemeting CSR. So the author would like to study how it can contribute the most important part in FPT’s CSR.
Similarly, other objective is to study whether connected marketing theory is suitable for Vicongdong’s marketing plan and how to apply. The last one is in the case of prospect, the author try to build a marketing plan for Vicongdong based on connected marketing theory. Scope In the name of field, the thesis belongs to marketing topic which is theory of connected marketing. In the name of space, the thesis studies the real status and problem within the project Vicongdong.vn of FPT Corporation.
Time for studying the content of thesis is about one year from the establishment of the project Data source: 1 The thesis takes many secondary data from FPT Corporation, books, internet. The primary data is directly collected from the website because the high interactive factors of web 2. The author has many advantages in collecting this kind of data which is online comment of website’s member stead of implementing a small survey. Besides that, the data has been collected by interviewing some important people such as head of the project, Mr.
Do Huu Hung, marketing expert of some companies such as ETC center, Sunhouse company, FPT Corporation, members of the website… Method/ Approach The method of the thesis includes interviewing experts, theory access from executive books, Internet search, observation. Research question Why the project hasn’t had a clear marketing plan? How Vicongdong can help FPT Corporation doing CSR and then help FPT build great image? How will connected marketing theory be more suitable for building marketing plan for Vicongdong? Which disadvantages will affect the feasibility of marketing plan for Vicongdong? Significance The thesis seems to be necessary for Vicongdong at this period and it may be reference for other companies want to do CSR most effectively. Limitation Connected marketing theory is relatively new and incipient in Vietnam so it requires some different factors. The access to data source may be incorrect and lack of information.
It requires some certain knowledge on donation and community activities. Expected result 2 The author respect it to apply connected marketing theory on the case of Vicongdong and build a marketing plan based on this theory. Follow up potential In the case of approval by the project, the author would like to study deeply to apply in reality with more information and time. It will be basic for studying theory “built to last” for FPT Corporation.
The author also want to study an adjusted theory suitable for Vietnamese companies Content The content includes three parts: Chapter 1: Literature review – Connected marketing Chapter 2: External environment analysis and connected marketing activity of Vicongdong Chapter 3: Recommendations 3 CHAPTER1:LITERATUREREVIEW–CONNECTEDMARKETING Chapter I of the thesis will explore the literature of a recently marketing term – connected marketing including the definition, types of connected marketing and how to process a connected marketing campaign.1 Definition: Connected Marketing 1.1 Marketing The term of marketing is very popular to all of organizations and businesses. It relates to a crucial industry that affects on many other activities and plays a huge role for the development of a business or non-business unit. Especially, it has a special effect on the image of an organization. However, up to now there has no consolidated point of view about this concept.
According to American Association – AMA, “Marketing is a business activity which drives products and service from the manufacturer to customer” Philip Kotler, a leading marketing expert said: “Marketing is to work with the market to exchange with the purpose of satisfying demand and need of people.identifying and meeting human and social needs.” According to Peter Drucker, “the purpose of Marketing is not to promote consumption. Its purpose is to realize and penetrate customer so thoroughly that goods or service will fill the right demand of customer and it will be consumed automatically” Therefore, in general, marketing is all activities of researching, recovering demand on goods or service of people and satisfying them best.2 Connected Marketing Nowadays, the development of information technology as well as digital technology has opened new trends in society. It seems that the world is really flat as the theory about globalization of Thomas L. Friedman, the author of an international bestselling book “The World is flat”.
Globalization also means all parts of the world have the similar concerns and the ability of connecting together 4 more and more easily. If Nokia, for example of a mobile brand has helped us “connecting people” for such a long time, we can visibly realize that nowadays, the connection is very, very, very huge. The author not only connects in a small space, short time and domestically but also connects together in global level and with no limitation. So, it is not speaking with exaggeration when we say that: connect or die! And I think that it is really true with economic organizations.1: An example of a social network diagram.
The node with the highest centrality is marked in symbol that the arrow goes into. Source: Wikipedia http://en.org/wiki/ Social_network Marketing industry responds very quickly with the development of the age. We easily understand because it always focuses on people, everything around human beings to serve the research on people’s demand, bring satisfaction and even suggestion of product choices for people’s needs. Marketing itself no longer appears as before.
The traditional marketing efforts reveal their weakness. We can take the following famous quotes for reference: “The traditional marketing model we all grew up with is obsolete”- Jim Stengel, Global Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble, 2004 [43] 5 “Mass marketing today is a mass mistake” - Larry Light, Chief Marketing Officer, McDonalds, 2004 [38] “For the first time the consumer is boss, which is fascinatingly frightening, scary and terrifying, because everything we used to do, everything we used to know, will no longer work” - Kevin Roberts, Chief Executive, Saatchi & Saatchi, 2005 [49]. Recently, there are many new marketing terms such as: digital marketing, word of mouth marketing, viral marketing, buzz marketing, stealth marketing, passion marketing, connected marketing… In this study the author explores the term connected marketing. Very easily to quick understand the term, it relates to connection.