TEM Lab: Vietnam – Yasaka Saigon Nhatrang

On June 25th, our marketing consulting team presented on the integrated marketing plan that we had spent six weeks developing for our client and key stakeholders involved in the tourism industry in Nha Trang and the Khanh Hoa Province of Vietnam. The presentation lasted for 90 minutes, followed by a 90 minute question and answer period along with a 30 minute interview of the team by a national newspaper. Over 50 people attended the presentation, which was held at the Yasaka-Saigon Hotel in Nha Trang. Those in attendance included important members of the local government and tourism boards, general managers of two 5-Star resorts, small business owners, the representative of Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), educators from the tourism school and the management team from the Yasaka-Saigon Hotel. The presentation was televised throughout the day on the local news program.

The presentation was well received by those in attendance. The 60 minute scheduled question and answer session turned into a town-hall type discussion that stretched on for an additional 30 minutes; the central topic being the need to act and quickly implement the strategy that our team had just presented on. Mr. Nham, a key stakeholder in the provincial government, closed the meeting with these kind words: “From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to express our deep gratitude to you for the presentation, and we strongly believe that the report will be a worthy contribution for the building of the next generation of Vietnam tourism.”

In addition to our final presentation to the client system, our team produced a comprehensive 65 page marketing plan. The plan was based upon information garnered from extensive primary and secondary research combined with academic marketing theory and the creativity of the team. Included in the plan, was a thorough analysis of the regional tourism industry, the importance of brand equity and the building of a strong brand, and our “Big Idea” based upon a frank and honest discussion of product development and the brand essence of Nha Trang.

The following images are some of the mock ups I developed to demonstrate how to brand Nha Trang in a clear, clean, and consistent way, while maintaining the focus on the brand essence of the area.

The area of Nha Trang is exquisite. It is the perfect place to come and relax. Nha Trang houses miles of pristine beaches, the best diving in Vietnam (with more diversity in coral than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia), rejuvenating spas and a vibrant local culture. Come and REVIVE yourself in Nha Trang.
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From one’s first moments in Vietnam, bonsai bombard. The art of bonsai is most commonly associated with the better-known Japanese tradition. However, in speaking about Vietnamese culture one would be remiss if they failed to mention the Vietnamese utter fervor for the art form, called hòn non bộ. At our hotel in Nha Trang we have a bonsai forest at over 400 strong; ranging in species, size, age and all manners of contortion. In every village, town and city in all manners of locations, bonsai trees abound. Overall the art form here is often in bigger pots with bigger trees, less strict then the Japanese and carries more similarities to the Chinese tradition of Penjing.

While I’m a novice aficionado of bonsai, I can say that I’ve come to admire and appreciate it. It truly creates a certain peacefulness and the garden greenery runs prolific in hotel lobbies, restaurant courtyards, palatial ruins and even on decks of boats.

Bonsai samples below.

The Thunderbird Emerging Markets Practicum (TEM Lab) is the perfect laboratory and capstone course to challenge the education and skill set of a Thunderbird MBA candidate in a way that adds tremendous value to the client and host country, the students involved, and the school.

The education that I have received during my last two years at Thunderbird has been second to none. The school’s #1 ranking in international management is entirely warranted. Thunderbird has been able to recruit top tier professors and educators, who have provided challenging material and experiences that have changed the way in which I understand and do business. To maximize my learning at graduate school, I decided to split my focus into the study of marketing/brand management and consulting/leadership coursework. Doing so has provided me with access to some of the greatest intellects within these disciplines. In marketing, Professor Baer cemented my desire to pursue brand management and provided me with a tool kit and frameworks which will enable me to take on any challenge and add value to any firm. Professor Ettenson’s courses built upon this foundation, and in turn tapped into his network to provide for his students to be taught by industry leaders in branding across virtually all sectors of business. These learning experiences have been priceless.

It was a good thing that I was able to garner a top notch and applicable education in branding as my coursework in consulting has demanded my all. Professor Finney has connected with exciting companies in order to develop challenging projects that allow for real world application. During his course: Organizational Consulting, I was able to work for one of these firms (Net Documents). This practical experience allowed me to meld the consulting process with my newly honed branding skills. The hours and hours put forth for our client were both incredibly strenuous and rewarding. It was amazing to be able to present to the management team and then to see our strategy quickly adopted and implemented.

Having learned and achieved so much during my two years at school, I thought that the TEM lab course in Vietnam would be simple. We had put together an amazing team with diverse yet complementary experiences and backgrounds. The project was to be built around developing a brand strategy for a popular province in Vietnam and each team member had been around the world many times over and knew a few things about attractive destinations. Additionally, each of us had taken courses in cross cultural communication and excelled in global negotiations. So, this project should be a no brainer, right? Well, it turns out that balancing the complexity proved to be extremely challenging. This project has demanded that we fully utilize and enact the skills learned in Organizational Consulting, while balancing and infusing the proper marketing/branding strategies. An extreme layer of complication has been added with the political dynamics of working for a command structured government and the ensuing culture differences associated including the language, culture and education gaps.

The first few weeks were spent in the discovery phase of the consulting process. Previous posts have discussed some of the challenges we faced during this process. These challenges continued through weeks three and four for the rest of the team, but as the two members of the group with branding experience, Dave and I switched gears in order to scrutinize the market research, execute a brand audit on the province and develop a strong strategic marketing analysis and plan. With the marketing research in hand and with a little branding creativity we honed in on building a plan that would highlight differentiation and core competencies in order to create strong brand equity. We identified the brand essence of the province and discussed the need to be clear, concise and consistent in brand building. We worked on segmenting and targeting the market and the importance of social media in regards to our targeted segments. In others words, we geeked out on branding and somewhat forgot the consulting side of the coin.

After meeting with a few of the stakeholders and government officials who should be in charge of implementation (“should” being the operative word as the ambiguity and buck passing within the system is extremely high) we were quickly brought back down to earth (Vietnam). We realized that no matter how good our strategy was, we could not implement any of it without a great amount of buy-in from our stake holders. We also realized that the language, cultural and educational gaps were major obstacles and in order to be successful, we were going to have to find a way to be authentic without offending, and simple and clear while utilizing anecdotal types of examples as per cultural preference in understanding a subject. The final two weeks of work certainly seemed cut out for us.

Ultimately, this practicum has provided intense learning, and forced our team to apply knowledge from all aspects of our Thunderbird education. I can not imagine a better experience prior to reentering the work force. It is real global business exposure and has rendered the opportunity to gain authentic branding and consulting experience in an environment that is fraught with obstacles and challenges.

Last Sunday morning at the wee hour of 1:30, four Americans found themselves in a tight spot. These hardy adventurers had decided to sacrifice sleep in order to help support their country in an epic battle against a tyrannous foe.

Location: A seedy backpacker bar in Hoi An, Vietnam.

Situation of the larger battle: The World Cup match between the Juggernaut England vs. the rebellious former colony in the United States of America.*
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This past weekend we traveled to Hanoi and Halong Bay to take in the beautiful scenic UNESCO world heritage site and experience tourism in the North. Our first encounter did not turn out so pleasant. We rented a boat to cruise around Halong Bay and had specified with the owner of the boat what we wanted. Five excited Americans were off to experience something amazing…or so we thought.
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Two years ago, before coming to Thunderbird, my daily routine wasn’t different than most. In fact, it was probably quite similar to the average working professional. Among many other things, this routine comprised of getting my monthly haircut by my trusted barber. You see, I have always viewed getting a haircut as a very personal, uncomfortable and tedious experience, almost like a visit to the doctor. One wrong cut here, one misdiagnosis there, and an ugly head of hair is staring at you and everyone else right in the face for the next month. In other words, the process of finding a trust-worthy barber is akin to finding the right mechanic; you never know if you can trust them, but you really have little choice in the matter. For that reason, I can count on three fingers the number of barbers who have cut my hair. That was, of course, until I came to Thunderbird.
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As I strolled along a beachside sidewalk out in front of our hotel the thin layer of sand allowed me to slide my sandaled feet as I meandered around. I wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, I was waiting out there at 6 am with my camera poised waiting to capture the simple wonders of Nha Trang’s early morning routine. I began to notice things. The sun was somehow blistering hot already. There were hundreds of people out. They were swimming, having soccer practice, cleaning the hotel grounds, practicing Tai Chi facing the ocean, and sitting on a bench with their loved one enjoying the day before the sun would send everyone to run for cover. There were hundreds, no thousands of scooters on the main road that parallels the beach. Each of them a small piece of the collective roar of Nha Trang city during the not so peaceful wee hours of the morning.
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Venturing to a country that is almost a third smaller than the state of California and yet has three times the amount of coastline poses a unique gastronomic challenge for me. For all 30 years of my life, I have lived by one simple motto when it comes to the cuisine that I eat: “if it is from the sea, it is not for me.” Short and cheesy, but for me, 100% true. I do not eat fish of any sort, nor shell fish, nor seaweed. This may stem from growing up in a land locked community where fresh fish was hard to come by, but even when fishing in the mountain streams as a boy, I was strictly a catch and release sort of kid.
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After navigating through the cultural ambiguities of our morning meeting, the team was excited to meet with a familiar face to the Thunderbird community: Hang Thi Huynh of K-biz Consulting. Prior to our arrival, another TEM Lab team consulted with K-biz in Nha Trang for six weeks and was able to implement more efficient business tools and competencies, resulting in immediate success. As a result, Hang was thrilled to have another Thunderbird team on the ground. Having extensive experience consulting with the local tourism industry, we knew going into the project that she would be a great resource….and we were right.
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