RedFern Digital’s Sandra Weiss reports on the rise of influencer marketing in Vietnam, and it’s an opportunity for brands to reach their target audience.
Influencer or Key Opinion Leader (KOLs) marketing has become an increasingly important method through which brands can work with influencers on social media to promote their product and reach their customers. Vietnam is no exception. The country had over 77 million active social media users in 2022, who spent an average of 2 hours and 28 minutes using social media every day. Working with local influencers who can tap into that attention economy is a lucrative method for brands to expand their reach and engage with their target audience.
In fact, over 77% of Vietnamese users have purchased a product because of influencer recommendations or endorsements, indicating the trust that Vietnamese consumers have in local influencers.
It is increasingly becoming common for brands to invest over 30% of their marketing budget on influencer marketing, especially as product discovery oftentimes occurs through influencer reviews, unboxing videos, or product tutorials. The ad spending on influencer advertising in Vietnam is projected to reach USD75.29m in 2023 and USD123.10m by 2027, at an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 13.08%.
The most popular content types that Vietnamese influencers share include Fashion & Beauty, Entertainment & Hobbies, and Food & Beverage. However, influencers are not limited to only one of these verticals, and in recent years, more have begun to branch out into several different types of content categories.
A successful influencer campaign[1]
Focallure is a beauty brand from China that has successfully leveraged influencer marketing into widespread success in Vietnam. The main challenge that the brand faced was to localize its products to Vietnam and increase brand awareness within the competitive beauty industry.
To address this, Focallure ran an influencer campaign in 2021 across Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, aiming to promote their new product line to a target audience of millennials and Gen Z consumers who are interested in beauty and beauty products.
On YouTube, Focallure sent products to 12 beauty influencers, who filmed product reviews and tutorials using Focallure’s new products. During these videos, the influencers discussed the product price, quality, and characteristics, while showing their viewers how the products can be used. Through their efforts, the brand’s YouTube campaign gained over 700,000 views, with an engagement rate of 8-10%, most of which were positive comments about the brand and products.
Focallure also worked with 20 Facebook influencers to produce product reviews that included multiple photos or short clips of the influencers using the products. The influencers used the hashtags #Focallure and #Focallurereview to tie the posts back to the campaign, with many receiving over 2,000-3,000 interactions on their posts.
On Instagram and TikTok, the format favoured for this style of campaign is short video, including unboxings, reviews, tutorials, and make-up transformations that show “Before” and “After” photos of the influencers. Focallure also worked with smaller influencers to increase word-of-mouth marketing. The views on these videos reached over 70k-300k per video, with likes reaching up to over 40% of total views.
In terms of sales, the campaign increased revenue in Vietnam by 25%, and the rate of new orders by 17%.
As can be seen, when implemented correctly through careful selection of influencers that have high engagement rates and content style and type that is appropriate for the brand, influencer marketing campaigns can lead to massive increases in brand awareness and sales in Vietnam.
RedFern Digital is an award-winning independent brand management agency that develops, manages, and distributes brands across Asia. We are responsible for the strategic direction, growth, and performance of some of the largest and most successful brands across a dynamic range of categories in the market, covering Research, Branding, Strategy, Social Media marketing, E-commerce & Technical Integration.
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[1] Source: Brands Vietnam, website: https://www.brandsvietnam.com/campaign/681-Focallure-Cosmetics-Chien-luoc-Influencer-Marketing-giup-FOCALLURE-tro-thanh-hieu-ung-tren-mang-xa-hoi-nhu-the-nao
