Trung Nguyen, the coffee company of Dang LeNguyen Vu, known as the Vietnamese Coffee King, has not gained successwith the G7 brand and his strategy of asking Vietnamese people to drinkVietnamese coffee.
A branding expert noted that Trung Nguyen hasnot effectively renewed its brand image in the eyes of consumers, andthe business strategy has also been inappropriate.
The expertsaid that Trung Nguyen has been pursuing a sales policy which mostlytargets traditional markets. But the visitors to traditional markets aremostly housewives, who rarely drink coffee. Thus, it has not approachedthe clients with the most potential.
He went on to say that Vu,the owner of Trung Nguyen, was busy with strategies to compete withStarbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Highland’s Coffee chains andis paying less attention to instant-coffee products, which are the mainsource of income for Trung Nguyen.
Vinacafe Bien Hoa, also afamous brand in the instant coffee market, which now holds 40 percent ofthe instant-coffee market share, has been quiet for a long time afterthe failure of its “real coffee” marketing campaign.
Nestle isthe only big guy that has stood firm. The company, with Nescafe brand,ranks second in the market in revenue, but first in sales of 3-in-1instant coffee.
After experiencing failure with a canned-liquidcoffee, Nestle has been focusing on developing its familiar products topreserve its market share.
While the “big guys” have been slowing down their pace, new coffee brands have geared up to conquer the domestic market.
Sourcessaid that Phindeli, a newcomer in the market, is going to launch itsinstant coffee brand. Phindeli has fallen into the hands of Kinh DoGroup, a sweets and consumer goods manufacturer which holds a largedistribution network in Vietnam.
The director of a supermarketchain in Hanoi commented that the “heat” created by Kinh Do has “fannedthe nape” of the big guys like Trung Nguyen, Nestle and Vinacafe BienHoa.
Dao Heuang Group (DHG), the biggest coffee manufacturer fromLaos, has officially joined the Vietnamese market through an exclusiveVietnamese distributor.
The presence of a Lao coffee brand inVietnam was a big surprise to many analysts, who commented that DHG mustbe very daring to confront the “big guys” like Nestle, Trung Nguyen andVinacafe Bien Hoa.
Boonheuang Litdang, vice president of DHG,said she knows about the stiff competition in the Vietnamese coffeemarket, but she believes there is still room for DHG there.
“Thepresence of Dao coffee brand in Vietnam alone is enough to show that thecoffee competition in Vietnam has escalated to a higher level,” thebranding expert was quoted as saying.-VNA