B2C MARKETING PLAN

Focusing on camera category for Le Bao Minh Joint Stock

Investment Company

Thi Minh Trang Le

Bachelor´s Thesis
February 2016
Degree Programme in
International Business
ABSTRACT

Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu
Tampere University of Applied Sciences
Degree programme in International Business
Option of Marketing

Thi Minh Trang Le

B2C marketing plan
Focusing on camera category for Le Bao Minh Joint Stock Investment Company

Bachelor's thesis 66 pages, appendices 10 pages

February 2016

The main objective for this thesis was to find out effective marketing strategies related to
camera product category for Le Bao Minh Joint Stock Investment Company to attract
customers choosing Canon cameras sold by the company. The thesis purpose was to create
a detailed marketing plan to replace ineffective and unstructured current marketing plan of
the company.

To fulfil the objective, the collection of both secondary and primary data was performed.
Secondary data was collected mainly through published books, e-books and online
academic writing; combined with the data and statistics provided by the case company.
Primary data was gathered by two ways: customer survey; and interviews with company
Marketing manager and one Business planning staff. Customer survey was conducted in
both online and paper forms with the participation of 207 suitable respondents.

The thesis consisted of three main parts. The first part was theoretical framework; which
was supported by secondary data the author collected from different sources. The second
part was to analyze customer survey by presenting graphs and explanations to obtain
primary data. The third part was to answer the main objective by developing a detailed
marketing plan for the case company based on the structure of theoretical framework.
Internal and external situational analysis, SWOT, customer and competitor evaluation as
well as marketing mix were focused in this part.

Based on the marketing plan, a list of recommendations was presented at the end of the
thesis. The results of this thesis will be utilized by the case company to conduct a marketing
plan in 2016.

Key words: marketing plan, customer survey, promotion, Vietnamese market, competitive
advantage
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CONTENTS

1 COMPANY INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 5

2 RESEARCH PLAN ........................................................................................................ 6
2.1 Background information of thesis topic .................................................................. 6
2.2 Thesis objectives and purposes ............................................................................... 7
2.3 Main concepts and theories applied in the thesis .................................................... 7
2.3.1 Marketing and marketing plan ......................................................................... 7
2.3.2 Internal situational analysis .............................................................................. 9
2.3.3 External situational analysis........................................................................... 10
2.3.4 SWOT analysis .............................................................................................. 13
2.3.5 Customer analysis .......................................................................................... 14
2.3.6 Competitor analysis ........................................................................................ 15
2.3.7 Marketing mix ................................................................................................ 16
2.3.8 Marketing research ......................................................................................... 18
2.4 Data collection and data ........................................................................................ 18
2.4.1 Types of data .................................................................................................. 18
2.4.2 Methods of data collection ............................................................................. 19
2.4.3 Data analysis .................................................................................................. 21
2.5 Thesis process ........................................................................................................ 21
3 ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER SURVEY ..................................................................... 23
3.1 Basic information and structure of the survey....................................................... 23
3.2 Survey analysis ...................................................................................................... 24
4 MARKETING PLAN FOR LE BAO MINH ............................................................... 36
4.1 Internal situational analysis ................................................................................... 36
4.1.1 Mission ........................................................................................................... 36
4.1.2 Company resources ........................................................................................ 36
4.2 External situational analysis .................................................................................. 38
4.2.1 Porter’s five force factors ............................................................................... 38
4.2.2 PESTEL analysis ............................................................................................ 41
4.3 SWOT analysis ...................................................................................................... 46
4.4 Customer analysis .................................................................................................. 47
4.4.1 Market segmentation ...................................................................................... 47
4.4.2 Market targeting ............................................................................................. 49
4.5 Competitor analysis ............................................................................................... 49
4.6 Marketing mix ....................................................................................................... 54
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4.6.1 Product ........................................................................................................... 54

4.6.2 Price................................................................................................................ 55
4.6.3 Place ............................................................................................................... 56
4.6.4 Promotion ....................................................................................................... 56
5 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION ......................................................... 59
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................... 62
APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................... 67
Appendix 1. Interview with marketing manager of Le Bao Minh ................................... 67
Appendix 2. Interview with Le Bao Minh staff from Business planning department ..... 68
Appendix 3. Customer survey .......................................................................................... 69
Appendix 4. Analysis of answers ..................................................................................... 70
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1 COMPANY INTRODUCTION

Le Bao Minh Joint Stock Investment Company was established in August 1997 with the
aim of becoming one of the leading businesses specialized in offering reputable and highly
qualified office equipment to Vietnamese market. Canon Corporation is a leading Japanese
multinational corporation specialized in manufacturing imaging solutions;
including cameras, camcorders, photocopiers, printers, scanners and projectors. With the
prediction of Canon’s enormous potential development in developing countries, combined
with national reform policies, since 2003, Le Bao Minh has determined to modify its
objectives and partnered with the Corporation to become an exclusive and authorized
distributor for Canon products in Vietnamese market.

Many different Canon products, with the support of Le Bao Minh, have been distributed to
variety of retail companies among different regions in Vietnam. From a small infamous
enterprise, the company has currently expanded its distribution network in 64 provinces
with more than 400 agencies to ensure Canon products can be delivered to customers in the
quickest and most effective way. Combining with distributing products, Le Bao Minh has
operated various warranty centres with friendly high staff expertise and affordable price so
that all Canon customers, regardless where they purchase the products can contact when
their products have technical problems. The company itself has also determined to launch
several own stores in six most developed provinces to directly serve its potential customers.

After thirteen years co-operating together and actively improving operational strategies,
both the company and Canon Corporation have successfully gained strong positions in the
market. While Canon has gradually become a favourite brand among Vietnamese people,
customers cannot ignore the reliability of Le Bao Minh when deciding where to buy Canon
products with high quality.
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2 RESEARCH PLAN

2.1 Background information of thesis topic

This thesis is about conducting a B-2-C marketing plan focusing on camera product
category for Le Bao Minh Joint Stock Investment Company.

The author completed five-month internship as a marketing trainee and was accepted to
write Bachelor’s thesis for Le Bao Minh Joint Stock Company - a Vietnamese exclusive
distributor of Canon Corporation. Besides distributing Canon products to many retailers
around Vietnam, the company has also opened its own showrooms as well as co-operating
with Canon Corporation to develop their stores called Canon Image Square in six different
Vietnamese cities and provinces so that sell Canon products directly to customers.
However, because customers has already been familiar with purchasing products from retail
companies, not many of them notices that the company has its own stores; which results in
low sales revenue generated from those stores.

Among different product categories, camera is one of the most popular and important
product categories Le Bao Minh and Canon focus on. The demand of camera usage among
Vietnamese people has increased significantly recently; as a result, there has been the
appearance of many strong competitors in the market. In addition, the appearance of
camera products shipped directly from Japanese and other foreign markets with lower price
in Vietnamese electronic supermarkets and stores has risen substantially; which leads to the
reduction of Le Bao Minh’s camera overall sales revenue, both in B2B and B2C markets.
In spite of it, most of Le Bao Minh’s marketing strategies for camera product category at
the moment are based on discount programs; which brings two main problems. Firstly,
discount is not an effective way to boost the sales in long term, especially when the market
becomes very competitive. Secondly, too much discount can lead to the dissatisfaction from
retail stores- B2B customers who also sell Canon cameras distributed by Le Bao Minh.
Besides that, the company’s discount rate still cannot compete effectively with much
cheaper products shipped from other foreign markets. The company should apply other
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different marketing strategies to strengthen this category; at the same time, do not make
other main customers - B2B customers feel being threatened.

Therefore, as a student studying international business specialized in marketing and as a

five-month marketing trainee for Le Bao Minh, the author decided to create a marketing
plan focusing on camera product category with the aim of increasing purchasing power of
Canon cameras sold directly by Le Bao Minh’s stores among B2C customers.

2.2 Thesis objectives and purposes

The main objective for this thesis is to answer the question: “What are effective marketing
strategies for Le Bao Minh to attract customers choosing Canon cameras sold by the
company and maintain long term customer relationship with them?” The thesis purpose
is to create a detailed and structured marketing plan instead of quite unstructured current
marketing plan to find out suitable marketing strategies for the company.

In order to answer to the main objective, a customer survey (Appendix 3) is conducted to

understand the background information of Canon camera’s current customers as well as
collecting customers’ feedback to develop an effective marketing plan. Besides that, small
interviews with company marketing manager and business staff (Appendix 1 & 2) are also
implemented to receive ideas and opinions directly from company members. A marketing
plan is launched later based on the survey result, analysis of interview and the author’s own
experiences.

2.3 Main concepts and theories applied in the thesis

2.3.1 Marketing and marketing plan

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Kotler, Amstrong, Ang, Leong, Tam and Hon-Ming (2009, 4-5) defined marketing as a
process of creating value for customers and maintaining long term relationship with them to
receive value for the company in return. Tanner and Raymond (2012, 8) also quoted the
definition by AMA and said that the process of performing four main components
“creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging” products to bring value for
customers of a company is called marketing. Value is identified as the benefits customers
receive when purchasing products and those benefits are applicable to their needs.
Regardless the benefits one product promises to deliver, if it does not meet the requirement
of customers, that product still cannot create any value. (Tanner & Raymond 2012, 10.)

Woods (2003)’s definition cited by Vrontis and Thrassou (2006, 134) described marketing
plan as a process of analyzing market situation, setting objectives and strategies and
implementing them; and finally assessing marketing actions based on targeted objectives.
According to the information given by different sources (Federal Highway Administration
2007, 10-11; Fisher 2009, 6-25; Kotler et al. 2009, 577-586), the definition of a marketing
plan can also be described as a combination of several main components as below.

- Executive summary: a short paragraph to inform the reader about what the plan is
trying to present. Executive summary should be the first part of a marketing plan;
however, it is said to be the most logical to write after the completion of first plan draft.
- Company overview: The company background and key activities are mentioned briefly
in this part. List of objectives the company wants to achieve should also be presented.
- Situation analysis: Claudiu, Andrei and Gabriela (2011, 731) defined situation analysis
as a process of obtaining and analyzing both company’s resources and different
components of market environment. Internal and external situation related to the
company as well as SWOT analysis are examined in this section.
- Market analysis: This section consists of two main parts: customer analysis and
competitor analysis; which will be discussed specifically later.
- Marketing strategy: Mongay (2006, 4-5) quoted the definition from Jain (1993) to
define marketing strategy as the process of utilizing company’s own strengths to
differentiate it from competitors and satisfy customers better than competitors do. The
marketing strategy used in this thesis is the marketing mix - 4Ps.
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- Financial plan: The ultimate goal of investing in marketing is to make the return on
company’s sales revenue and profit in a short or long term. As a result, a plan should
give the readers the overall budget for performing marketing strategies.
- Implementation plan and control: This section outlines the schedule and the progress
to implement marketing tasks and activities as well as how to assess the effectiveness of
marketing strategies and the possibility of achieving targeted objectives.

In spite of mentioning as parts of marketing plan, this thesis does not include financial plan;
and implementation plan and control due to the main objective of the thesis. The major
components of a marketing plan used in this thesis are explained further below.

2.3.2 Internal situational analysis

Before starting to conduct any effective marketing plan, the company firstly needs to
analyze their own internal situation to find out their strengths and weaknesses. Among
different internal factors, the first component taken into consideration in this thesis is
mission. According to Millard (2010, 1) and Papulova (2014, 13), a statement representing
the reason why an organization or a firm exists is called a mission. Among huge number of
competitors offering relatively similar products and service, mission statement is what
helps a company differentiates itself from others. Dermol (2012, 892) quoted the
information from Lešnik (2008) and Williams (2008) to conclude that the effectiveness of
strategy performance, internal communications as well as company’s management could be
enhanced by having a specific mission statement. After collecting opinions from different
authors, mission statement can be claimed as the first very important part when analyzing
internal situational analysis of a marketing plan.

The second important component that needs to be discussed when figuring out internal
situation of an organization is company resource. This thesis only focuses on three major
resource components based on the writing of Lovelock, Wirtz & Chew (2009, 68) and
West, Ford & Ibrahim (2006, 87). The authors divided an organization’s resources into
financial, human labour and know-how; and physical assets. In terms of financial assets, the
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company has strong financial assets when the liquidity is high. In case of human labour and
know-how, the factor deciding the strength of a company’s human resource is employee’s
expertise and ability to work effectively. The final type of resources – physical assets
includes new buildings with modern equipment and machinery. (Lovelock et al 2009, 68;
West et al. 2006, 87.)

2.3.3 External situational analysis

Along with internal situation, a company needs to have enough information related to
external environment to make a marketing plan more realistic. In this thesis, the analysis of
external factors is based on two widely used concepts called Porter’s five force factors – for
external micro-environmental analysis; and PESTLE analysis – for external macro-
environmental analysis.

Porter’s five force factors

Porter’s five force factors analysis are said to be vital for creating a successful marketing
plan. It helps a company to analyze the attractiveness of an industry and understand
business pressure it can face within that industry as well as finding out the business domain
which can have either positively or negatively significant impact on its operation. (Cadle,
Paul & Turner 2010, 7.)

FIGURE 1. Porter’s five force factors. Adapted from Whalley (2010, 21)
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Based on figure 1, each of five force factor in Porter’s method is analyzed in more detailed
way.

- Rivalry among existing competitors: The level of competition and competitors’

actions affect the operation and success of a company. The organization needs to
determine their position within the market as well as which companies hold the
strongest power among various number of rivalries (Cadle et al. 2010, 7).
- Threat of new entrants: A company needs to identify potential level of new entrants
into the market to decide which marketing strategies should be launched. A market is
considered to have high barrier to entry when it requires new firms to invest large
amount of investment and know-how (Cadle et al. 2010, 7). The higher the market
barrier is, the more difficult for start-up businesses to compete with existing ones.
- Threat of substitute products or services: Substitution is defined as an action of
replacing products within a market by other products belonging to another market but
provide similar functionality and values (The UK chemicals stakeholder forum 2010,
3). The threat of substitute products or service tends to be high when consumer switch
cost is low; and these products have cheaper price than products in the industry while
their quality and performance is similar or even better (Team FME 2013, 22).
- Bargaining power of buyers: The bargaining power of buyers can have crucial impact
on the profitability of a business. The company will face many problems when
customers can easily switch to other products due to a variety of choices with similar
quality and price in the industry as well as low switch costs. The more desirable a brand
is, the less power of customers have to influence on that brand (Cadle et al. 2010, 8).
- Bargaining power of suppliers: High bargaining power of suppliers might affect a
company negatively. When suppliers have strong effect on the business, they would
have the ability to raise the price of their material and products regardless the volume of
sales. They also can reduce the quantity of products available in the market when their
bargaining power is significant. (Team FME 2013, 23.)
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PESTLE analysis

PESTLE is claimed to be a common tool to identify and analyze key external factors –
important factors which create opportunities and threats for the company; and affect the
success of marketing plan. There are some other external areas that are added into other
variations of PESTEL analysis such as ecological, ethical and educational; however, this
essay only focuses on six common factors mentioned below.

- Political factor: Analyses the stability of political environment and the possibility of
changes in government’s political decisions such as tax policy, economic intervention,
and trading agreements (Cadle et al. 2010, 3). A country’s health and the quality of
infrastructure as well as the consideration on level of educating and training company
workforce are influenced by political decisions (Oxford University Press 2007, 1).
- Economical factor: Includes variety of issues such as interest rate, level of inflation,
exchange rate, GDP and taxation; which decides the level of economic growth and
market confidence of an economy (Keung Ho 2014, 6480; Cadle et al. 2010, 4). To
illustrate, the increase in interest rate might result in the reduction of company
investment due to higher costs of loaning.
- Social factor: All factors related to the culture of the society where a business operates
belong to social factor. There are various factors which affects the development of a
firm; including language, demographic issues, consumer behaviour, living standard,
gender, the population and level of education (Keung Ho 2014, 6480).
- Technological factor: Discusses the trend and development of technology and
innovations. Technological trend and development are worth analyzing because if a
business recognizes the potential benefits of a new technology later than its
competitors, it could lose competitive advantages over its opponents.
- Legal factor: While political factors mainly discuss attitudes and approaches of
political parties, legal factors are related to governmental law and regulations. There are
different types of law including consumer laws, competition laws, employment laws,
and health and safety laws (Oxford University Press 2007, 2). The analysis of political
and legal factor is combined together in one single part in this thesis.
- Environmental factor: A list of problems related to natural environment is included in
environmental factor such as the concern of global warming, pollution and the
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packaging of products (Cadle et al 2010, 5). This factor has become more and more
important because the number of people concerns about environment has substantially
increased recently. A company can take into consideration the use of environmental
friendly products or packages to satisfy customers’ environmental concern.

2.3.4 SWOT analysis

The combination of internal and external factors mentioned above leads to SWOT analysis.
SWOT is a business technique that helps a company to make decision on strategies and
performances of product offerings. Analyzing SWOT means the analysis of four main
factors: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. (Gasporotti 2009, 97.). SWOT
is a tool that helps the business to summarize all different aspects of internal and external
environment; as a result, it is very necessary to be included when conducting a marketing
plan for the case company.

FIGURE 2. SWOT analysis. Adapted from Kotler et al. (2009, 47-48) & Team FME (2013,
6-9).

The analysis of these four elements is discussed below based on the information collected
from Kotler et al. (2009, 47-48) and Team FME (2013, 6-9).

- Strengths: internal factors such as company’s capabilities and resources which can
positively support the achievement of organization objectives.
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- Weaknesses: internal limitations and negative internal factors that can prevent an
organization to achieve its objectives and goals.
- Opportunities: external factors and trends of which a company can take advantage to
enhance its performances.
- Threats: external factors and trends which can create challenges and hinder the
performance of a company.

2.3.5 Customer analysis

As described before, marketing is a long-term process of creating value to satisfy needs and
demands of customers. Therefore, the examination of target customers’ behaviour is
inevitable when developing a marketing plan.

There is a variety of buyers with different wants, resources, location and attitudes within a
large market. A company’s assignment is to segment the market – dividing the large market
into smaller groups of customers who have the similar unique needs and characteristics to
create products, services and marketing programs suiting them better (Kotler et al. 2009,
166; Lovelock at al. 2009, 60). Major segmentation methods to divide customers into small
groups are outlined in Table 1 below.

TABLE 1. Segmentation methods. Adapted from Kotler et al. (2009, 167-172) and Burnett
(2008, 36-39).
Demographic segmentation
Geographic segmentation
Age, gender, family size, family life
Nations, states, regions, countries or cities
cycle, income, occupation, education
Psychographic segmentation Behavioural segmentation
Social class, attitudes, perception, motives, Occasions, benefits, user and usage rate,
personality loyalty status

The next step following market segmentation is to decide which and how many segments a
business wants to target. Target market is a market segment an organization decides to
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select in homogeneous market after evaluating different segmentation variables (Lovelock

et al 2009, 60). Targeting helps a company to deliver its marketing strategies effectively
without wasting time and costs on other segments besides targeted ones. According to
Kotler et al (2009, 176-181) and Baker (2003, 277), a business can determine the number of
target markets based on four different strategies (table 2).

TABLE 2. Targeting strategies. Adapted from Kotler et al (2009, 176-181) & Baker (2003,
277)
Undifferentiated or Ignore the differences in market segments and decide to
mass marketing target the whole market with the same marketing strategies.
Differentiated Target several potential market segments and create different
marketing marketing strategies for each of target market.
-Target one or a few smaller segments which might be
Concentrated or niche
ignored by larger competitors.
marketing
-Suitable for companies with limited resources.
Local marketing: Based on the needs of local customer
Micro marketing groups and Individual (custom) marketing: Based on the
needs of each individual customer.

2.3.6 Competitor analysis

The consecutive step of conducting a marketing plan that should not be ignored is
competitor analysis. According to Czepiel and Kerin (2012, 1-2), to formulate effective and
successful marketing strategies, a business needs to know enough about its rivalries to
predict what actions its competitors would do in a particular situation. The understanding of
competitors’ strengths and weaknesses can bring opportunities for a business to stand out
within target markets (Lovelock et al 2009, 68). Based on competitor analysis, a company
can create the differentiation and determine its positioning in customers’ mind. Baker
(2003, 279) described positioning as a process of designing image of a brand or a product
so that customers can know what that brand or product can offer them and what the
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differences it has compared to other brands. When a business can create the differentiation
and positioning, it will gain what every single company pursues: competitive advantage.

2.3.7 Marketing mix

After analyzing information related to competitors and identify the positioning of the
business, an effective marketing plan cannot miss the next step – formulating marketing
strategies. The business needs to deliver and communicate its chosen position to target
customers; which is supported by the analysis of marketing mix (Kotler et al. 2009, 189).
Baker (2003, 287) quoted the definition from Mc Carthy (2001) to describe marketing mix
as a group of marketing tools including 4Ps – product, price, place and promotion that a
company uses to achieve its objectives within target segments. An effective marketing mix
is made when the company can offer its products with benefits and values that solve
customers’ problems while spending low cost, communicate these benefits in an effective
way; and enable for customers to purchase the products easily (Baker 2003, 289).

Product

According to Kotler et al. (2009, 200), product is anything that a business can offer to users
to satisfy their needs and wants; including physical products, services, events, places,
organizations or ideas. To create a product or service that can bring the highest value for
customers, a business and its marketers need to analyze their products or services in three
levels: Core benefit, actual product and augmented product (Kotler 2009, 200; Burnett
2008, 153-154).
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• Delivery and credit

Augmented product • Installation and warranty
• After sale service
• Brand name, quality and features
Actual product • Design and packaging

• The most basic benefit a product

Core benefit can deliver

FIGURE 3. Levels of product. Adapted from Kotler (2009, 200) & Burnett (2008, 153-154)

Price

The second important element of a marketing mix is price – the amount of money
customers have to pay for purchasing a product or service (Kotler et al. 260). Burnett
(2008, 227) claimed that a business needs to understand that not all customers want to pay
the similar prices because they might not be interested in the same products, distribution
channels or promotional campaigns like others. As a result, different pricing strategies need
to be taken into consideration when deciding suitable price for target customers; which will
be described more specifically in Chapter 3.

Place

A supply chain includes “upstream” – working with suppliers of raw materials or expertises
for creating products; and “downstream” – working with distribution channels. In the
element “Place”, the focus of a supply chain is mainly “downstream” side – how to work
effectively with distribution channels so that customers can access to company’s products
conveniently. (Kotler et al. 307.) According to Whalley (2010, 91), a business needs to
decide whether to use direct or indirect channel for the delivery of products and determine
the types and the number of intermediaries if needed.
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Promotion

Kayode (2014, 9) defined promotion or marketing communication as the process of sharing

the information, concepts and values of company’s product or service to customers by the
use of four main components: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public
relation. The consideration of all four components can result in effective marketing
strategies for attracting more target customers to recognize and purchase company’s
products.

2.3.8 Marketing research

To create a successful marketing plan, the role of marketing research cannot be deniable.
The latest information about the market, competitors, customers as well as the newest
marketing theories and concepts need to be updated to ensure the effectiveness of
marketing strategies and programs. These kinds of “reliable, valid, timely, relevant and
current” information can be obtained through marketing research (Baker 2003, 172). Based
on the definition from American Marketing Association (2004), marketing research is a
method that helps the marketers and company connect with customers by utilizing the
group of information. This group of information is collected, analyzed and used to identify
company problems, threats and opportunities and to create the most effective solutions and
marketing strategies. According to Proctor and Jamieson (2012, 19), the use of marketing
research can reduce some of business risks because the larger amount of relevant
information can bring more accurate decisions and solutions for the business.

2.4 Data collection and data

2.4.1 Types of data

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Secondary data is the data already collected by someone else for some other research
purposes; but utilized by the company for current research purposes and problems. In more
detailed, secondary data has been already available in various sources such as internal data
within the firm, libraries, government publication or current common source with enormous
amount of data – internet. (Smith & Albaum 2010, 37-38; Hague 2006, 59-61.) According
to Smith and Albaum (2010, 30) and Baker (2003, 175), the cost and time of searching
secondary data are normally less than making a totally new research to obtain data. In this
thesis, secondary data is mostly used to support the literature needed to develop a
marketing plan; which is mainly taken from published books, e-books and online academic
writing. Information and statistics related to Vietnamese market, competitors and customers
from online sources are used in conducting a marketing plan, too. Besides that, the thesis
also utilizes the data provided by the case company.

Primary data is the data collected by the researcher himself based on various methods
such as interviews, focus groups or questionnaires to achieve the purpose of a current
research project. The research of primary data is executed when the secondary data sources
cannot contribute to solve research problems. (Baker 2003, 177.)

2.4.2 Methods of data collection

Quantitative research method is the use of techniques including surveys, interviews,

questionnaires and observation to collect numerical statistics from customers (Baker 2003,
177). The research technique applied in this thesis is customer survey. The author decided
to make a survey aimed at current customers of Canon cameras, including both those
buying Canon cameras from Le Bao Minh and those buying from other sources to figure
out their background and behaviour. The survey was made in both paper and online form.
Receiving the support from marketing manager of Le Bao Minh, paper form was placed in
company booths at three different events occurred in December 2015 in Ho Chi Minh City,
Can Tho and Binh Duong. As support of paper form, online form was sent to members of
Vietnamese popular photography communities and Facebook groups to increase the
number of respondents.
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Qualitative research method is the use of techniques including focus groups, depth
discussions and observation to collect information about people’s attitudes and ways of
behaviour. This method aims to make the respondents express true feelings and opinions
towards a product and service based on unstructured or semi-unstructured interview
approach (Hooley et al. 2004, 188; Hague 2006, 75-76.). The qualitative data of this thesis
was collected through the interview with Marketing manager and Business planning staff of
Le Bao Minh Company on 28th December 2015. The interview with company’s marketing
manager was made to understand better company’s marketing activities since September
2015 after I had finished my practical training at the end of August. Besides that, it would
be effective to know opinions about strengths and weaknesses of products and services
from a person who directly plan marketing strategies for the company. The second
interview was with an employee from Business planning department who has been
responsible for planning targeted sales revenue and has worked for Le Bao Minh for
approximately four years. She herself is also a loyal customer of not only cameras but also
other Canon’s products. The list of interview questions is presented in Appendix 1 and 2
while the results are used directly through the analysis of different thesis parts.

Observation: According to Shukla (2008, 49), there is still strong debate until now among
different researchers and marketing experts about where observation technique belongs to –
quantitative and qualitative. In this thesis, observation is classified as a part of both
quantitative and qualitative research method. Rather than truly communicating with
customers to gather essential data, observation is mostly dependent on the researcher’s
ability of observing (Shukla 2008, 49). According to Hooley, Saunders and Piercy (2004,
190), observation method is essential when customers could not or are not willing to give
accurate replies to research questions. There are some types of customer behaviour that
cannot be answered accurately by direct questioning because the respondents might not
remember their own unconscious behaviour and actions. There are also many questions
from researcher that the respondents do not feel comfortable to answer; which could cause
incorrect results and wrong research results.

The author decided to use her observation during five month working as a trainer in Le Bao
Minh to provide additional data for supporting this thesis. The data – which is ensured to be
 21

as objective as possible - is taken from the author’s own experiences, the feedback from
customers and other company’s employees as well as what the author observed by herself.

2.4.3 Data analysis

In case of quantitative data, after receiving completed survey from respondents, the answers
need to be checked and edited to ensure all the responses are compatible with questions.
Then, the questionnaires are coded numerically and stored in computer software depending
on the choice and complexity of the research. The raw data collected from customer survey
in this thesis is stored in form of Excel file; and calculated by using tabulation and cross-
tabulation (Appendix 4). The results are then analysed and a group of graphs are created to
explain survey results in more understandable way. (Hague 2006, 150-152.)

The analysis of qualitative data is generated from the transcript of interview conducted with
marketing manager and business staff of Le Bao Minh. The whole transcript is firstly read
through to identify key important words and sentences. After that, the mind-map is made to
bring the researcher a general view of information from the interview. The final step is to
analyze the mind-map and summarizing the results in a written form.

2.5 Thesis process

Chapter 3 firstly presents basic information and structure of customer survey using to
obtain primary data. Then, the survey results are discussed based on the graphs and
explanations.

Chapter 4 develops a marketing plan for Le Bao Minh based on the concept and theory
mentioned in Chapter 2 and the survey results in Chapter 3. The literature supporting a
marketing plan will be also analyzed more specifically in Chapter 4.
 22

Finally, Chapter 5 is for list of recommendations and conclusion from the author about the
most suitable marketing strategies for Le Bao Minh to attract customers to choose
company’s cameras over competitors.
 23

3 ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER SURVEY

3.1 Basic information and structure of the survey

To create an effective marketing plan based on the understanding of customers’ needs, a

survey is launched to target all Canon cameras’ customers. The preparation of
questionnaire list in both paper and online form by Vietnamese language; as well as the
final permission from the company to support the performance of survey were completed at
the beginning of December. Paper form was sent to Marketing department of Le Bao Minh
and customers coming to company’s booth were asked to fill in the survey when the
company participated in different events in three cities/ provinces: Ho Chi Minh City – 12th
December, Can Tho – 21st December and Binh Duong – 22nd December 2015. Along with
paper form, online survey performance was conducted from the middle of December until
the end of December. The respondents of online form were mainly from Vietnamese
popular photography communities and Facebook groups. Finally, 259 responses from both
paper and online form were collected with 207 responses being suitable with the aim of the
survey. The survey and results were then translated to English to present in this thesis.

The questionnaire includes 11 questions (Appendix 3); customers are only allowed to
choose the most suitable choice in 10 first questions while in the last question – about Le
Bao Minh, they can choose as many answers as they want. The first question is to find out
if the respondent is applicable to the survey by asking whether they use Canon camera or
not. If the respondent answers Yes, they can continue the second question; and they can
skip all following questions if their answer is No. The second and third question is about
basic background of the participants, including gender and age. The following questions are
related to Canon cameras - types of Canon camera the respondents bought, their main
purpose of purchase, reasons why they choose Canon over other brands, their possibility of
buying any other Canon products beside cameras; and the location of purchase. In ninth
question, the respondents are required to rate the importance of several basic elements
when deciding a place to by camera from 1 to 5, 1 is the most important and 5 is the least
important. The tenth question asks major sources the respondents use to find out about the
product before buying. The final question is about the awareness level of the respondents
 24

about Le Bao Minh’s operating activities. All the information provided by the respondents
is kept anonymous.

3.2 Survey analysis

Background information

The background information of the respondents is presented based on their gender and age.
As can be seen in Figure 4, the large proportion of respondents was male with 60% while
the female respondents were slightly lower with the percentage of 40%. Camera users
through the survey are also divided into four different age groups with the highest
percentage 41% from the age between 18 and 24; the rate of 30%, 23% and 6% are from
the respondents below 18 years old, from 25 to 34; and 35 years old or older respectively
(figure 5). To conclude, majority of Canon camera users from the survey was teenagers and
young adults, especially male customers. This result is applicable to Le Bao Minh and
Canon’s traditional main target groups in Vietnamese market. Men, especially young
generation normally have more interest and accept new technology, including cameras
more quickly.

Gender of the respondents

40% Male
Female
60%

N = 207

FIGURE 4. Gender of the respondents.

 25

Age of the respondents

6%
Below 18
30%
23% 18 – 24
25 – 34
35+

41%
N = 207

FIGURE 5. Age of the respondents.

Types of camera purchased

There are four fundamental camera types Canon has produced and offered to customers.
Figure 6 shows the types of Canon camera the respondents bought: the majority of them
purchased DSLR camera with 50%, the second favorite type was PowerShot with 31% and
the third choice was IXUS which held the percentage of 18%. Mirrorless was the least
favorite choice of the respondents with only 1%.

Types of camera purchased

1%

31% PowerShot
IXUS
50% DSLR
Mirrorless
18%

N = 207

FIGURE 6. Types of Canon camera the respondents purchased.

 26

The choice of Canon camera types is analyzed further depending each gender and age
group.

Figure 7 presents types of Canon camera purchased by each gender. PowerShot camera was
preferred by female respondents while more than half of male respondents chose DSLR
camera to spend their money. There was relatively equal percentage of IXUS camera usage
between male and female customers.

Types of camera purchased by gender

70%
58%
60%

50%
41% Male Female
38%
40%

30% 23%
18% 19%
20%

10%
1% 2%
0%
PowerShot IXUS DSLR Mirrorless N = 207

FIGURE 7. Types of Canon camera the respondents purchased based on gender.

As can be seen in Figure 8, in terms of age group, PowerShot was the most favorite choice
among the teenagers below 18 years old; and seniors from 35 years old and above with
40% and 38% respectively. Similarly to PowerShot, IXUS camera was also chosen the
most by two age groups mentioned above with 24% for both. In contrast, more than half of
respondents from the age between 18 and 34 years old preferred buying DSLR camera.
 27

Types of camera purchased by age group

70%
58% 59%
60%
50%
40% 38% 38%
40% 34%
28%
30% 24% 24% 24%
20% 16%
13%
10%
0%
Below 18 18 - 24 25 -34 35+
PowerShot IXUS DSLR N = 207

FIGURE 8. Types of Canon camera the respondents purchased based on age group.

The survey results based on gender and age group are suitable with the objectives of Canon
in Vietnamese market. PowerShot and IXUS with interesting features and attractive design
are easy-to-use cameras Canon originally produces to aim at those who only need cameras
for entertainment with basic knowledge related to camera techniques. Teenagers and
seniors, especially female customers normally have these kinds of characteristics; that is
why they tend to prefer choosing PowerShot and IXUS cameras. In opposite, DSLR
cameras which contain more complex specifications mainly attract amateur and
professional photographers – Vietnamese young adults, especially male customers.

Purpose of buying camera

There were an outstanding percentage of the respondents buying cameras due to their
photographing hobby – more than half of the respondents. The second aim of camera
purchase was to start amateur photographing career with 24%. The purpose of pursuing
professional photographing career held the percentage of 9% while the least choices held
6% and 5% of respondents with the answer: camera is essential for current jobs; and buying
camera as a gift to other people (figure 9).
 28

Purpose of buying camera

60%
50% 56%
40%
30%
20% 24%
10%
9% 6% 5%
0%
Photographing Amateur Professional Essential for Gift to others
hobby photographing photographing job
career career

FIGURE 9. Purpose of buying camera.

There is interesting statistics when analyzing further the purpose of purchase based on age
group. (figure 10). A majority of respondents below 18 years old bought cameras due to
their hobby with the percentage up to 94% while only 6% of them thought of buying
cameras to start amateur photographer career. There was no respondent from this group
choosing other purposes besides two main purposes mentioned. This result is not difficult
to understand due to the fact that customers from this age group are still very young and
mostly have not planned about their future career yet. Instead of seriously planning to
pursue photography career or purchasing cameras for their official job, they tend to
consider photography as an interesting hobby to do in their free time. Furthermore, they
mostly have not worked yet to have their own strong finance to purchase cameras as a gift
for others.
The age group from 18 to 24 years old mainly bought cameras for their hobby – 51% and
for amateur photography career – 36%. Quite similarly to the age group 18 – 24, the
respondents from 25 to 34 years old also purchased cameras for hobby – 30% and amateur
photography purpose – 25%. However, the percentage of buying camera due to hobby
decreased among this group and there was an increase in the use of camera for professional
career with 19%. Most of people from this age group have already finished high school or
the university and started to work. As a result, they have begun to make serious decisions
on their future job; that is why the percentage of purchasing cameras due to career tends to
increase among this group.
 29

The final age group – 35 years old and older – with stronger personal finance and stable
career mostly purchased cameras for professional usage and as a gift with 31% equally.

Purpose of purchase by age group

100%
90%
80%
70% Below 18
60% 18 - 24
50%
25 -34
40%
30% 35+
20%
10%
0%
Hobby Amateur Professional Essential for A gift
job N = 207

FIGURE 10. Purpose of buying camera based on age group.

Reasons of purchasing Canon cameras

Figure 11 shows statistics related to why the respondents chose to buy Canon cameras over
other brands. The highest choice was due to Canon brand itself with 40% and the following
reason was the quality of Canon product with 33%. 18% of the respondents chose Canon
cameras because they could have variety of product choices with nice design. Only 7% and
2% of respondents purchased Canon camera due to the price and the simplicity of products.
After a long period actively developing in the market, Canon brand has gained the
popularity in terms of cameras in Vietnam. Canon is often the first choice of camera users
due to brand awareness, its quality as well as the variety of products. However, in terms of
price, Canon is still more expensive compared to several other brands such as Panasonic
and Samsung; which can answer why only 7% of the respondents chose Canon due to the
price.
 30

Reasons of buying Canon camera

45%
40%
35% 40%
30% 33%
25%
20%
15% 18%
10%
5% 7% 2%
0%
The brand Product Suitable price Variety of Easy-to-use
quality choices with products
nice design

FIGURE 10. Reasons why the respondents bought Canon cameras.

Demand of Canon’s camera users for other Canon’s product categories

As can be seen in Figure 11, most of the respondents – 74% did not have the demand or did
not think of buying any other Canon products besides cameras. 25% of the respondents
concerned or bought Canon printers while only 1% of them concerned about scanners.
Another answer placed in this question was photocopier with only one respondent. Most of
the respondents are young generations and they are unable to purchase expensive and
unnecessary products such as photocopiers. Printer is normally a favorite choice among
camera users because many of photographers enjoy printing their own photos for keeping;
and the price range of Canon printers is very variable. For instance, a small convenient
printer called Selphy CP900 only costs around 3,300,000 VND (around 140 euro) (Canon,
2016).
 31

Demand of other Canon products

25% Printer
Scanner
1% Not at all
74%

N = 207

FIGURE 11. Demand for other Canon products besides camera.

The choice of location to purchase camera

Figure 12 depicts several major locations Vietnamese customers often decide to buy their
camera products. Among the respondents of the survey, approximately half of them chose
poplar electronic supermarkets such as Nguyen Kim, Cho Lon and Phong Vu to buy their
cameras. The second favorite choice was from online shops such as Lazada or online sales
from individuals with 20%. The rest of respondents relied on Canon Image Square stores,
events and exhibitions; and Le Bao Minh showrooms to buy their product. Only 1% of
respondents purchased camera directly from foreign markets. Large electronic
supermarkets have built very strong position in Vietnamese customers’ mind; therefore
they are not easy to be replaced by other kinds of camera stores including Le Bao Minh and
Canon stores. These supermarkets sell different reliable electronic product types and brands
from both Vietnamese and foreign markets with moderate price and professional delivery
service. Besides that, the demand in internet usage has increased substantially because
nowadays not only urban areas but also most of regions around Vietnam have ability to
access to internet easily (Ernst & Young, 28). Vietnamese people have currently accepted
the convenience of online shopping; as a result, online shops such as Lazada are becoming
favorite choices for customers, especially young generation.
 32

Locations of purchase
50%
45%
40%
35% 43%
30%
25%
20%
15% 20%
10%
5% 12% 10% 2% 12% 1%
0%

FIGURE 12. Locations of purchase.

Table 3 shows the rate of importance in several elements when the respondents decided to
choose a place for buying camera with 1 is the most important and 5 is the least important.
Interestingly, among seven different elements, warranty and support service ranked the first
position with the percentage of 75% as the most important element. The following ranks
belonged to the product quality with 52% and price with 43% of respondents as the most
important element. As can be seen, although Vietnamese people tend to prefer cheap price
of products, they still concern about product quality. Promotion activities launched by the
company they purchased cameras was next important element with 37% for 1 and 39% for
2. Another interesting statistics obtained from this survey was the relatively balanced
demand of physical stores and online shopping system. Although there is an increase in the
number of customers using online shopping system for convenience, many customers still
feel better if the company has their own stores at the same time to visit and try the products.
The final element - delivery service held the percentage of 33% for 1 and 35% for 2.
 33

TABLE 3. The rate of importance in each feature when the respondents chose a place to
buy cameras (1 = most important, 5 = least important).
Features 1 2 3 4 5 Total
108 90 9 0 0 207
Product quality
(52%) (44%) (4%) (0%) (0%) (100%)
89 82 31 5 0 207
Cheap price
(43%) (40%) (15%) (2%) (0%) (100%)
76 81 42 8 0 207
Promotion activities
(37%) (39%) (20%) (4%) (0%) (100%)
69 73 63 2 0 207
Delivery service
(33%) (35%) (31%) (1%) (0%) (100%)
156 49 2 0 0 207
Warranty/ Support service
(75%) (24%) (1%) (0%) (0%) (100%)
53 79 54 12 9 207
Online shopping system
(26%) (38%) (26%) (6%) (4%) (100%)
56 83 54 12 2 207
Physical stores
(27%) (40%) (26%) (6%) (1%) (100%)

Sources to find product information before purchasing

As can be seen in Figure 13, the most important source the respondents chose to rely on
when making buying decision was from their friends or relatives with the rate of 28%. The
following reliable source with 21% and 18% respectively were from photography forums
and groups; and from company websites and social media pages. Online advertisement and
camera events were the following reliable sources with 11% while traditional source of
information such as TV, newspaper and public advertisements received low percentage.
 34

Where to find product information

30%
25% 28%
20%
21%
15% 18%
10%
11% 11%
5% 1% 4% 6%
0%

FIGURE 13. Sources to find product information before purchasing.

Looking in more detailed way based on age group, the most important source of
information for the ages below 18 and above 34 years old was from the recommendation of
their relatives and friends with 29% and 31% respectively. The recommendation from close
people was also a reliable source for young people from 18 to 34 years old; however, there
was an increase in the use of company websites and photography forums among these two
age groups. The percentage of the respondents using photography forums to find out about
products was especially high in the age between 18 and 24 years old with 28%. As can be
seen, most of the respondent sources for information are from the recommendation of close
people or reliable parties such as forums instead of company’s own advertisements.
Vietnamese people are usually said to respect and try to keep close relationships with each
other (Meyer, Tran & Nguyen 2006, 21). It is not rare to see three or even four generations
living together under the same roof when visiting Vietnam. Therefore, they are more likely
to follow other people’s opinions in many issues including shopping, especially if those
people have close relationship with them. Teenagers are often affected by their parents’
decisions or their friends while seniors above 34 years old with slower technology update
tend to believe in their children and friends’ advices. Besides that, young adults between 18
and 34 years old with more access to internet also search for the recommendations from
famous websites and forums along with opinions from their close people.
 35

Finding information by age group

35%
30%
25%
20% Below 18
15% 18 - 24
10%
25 -34
5%
0% 35+

FIGURE 14. Sources to find product information before purchasing based on age group.

Le Bao Minh in customers’ mind

Figure 15 shows the awareness level of the respondents about Le Bao Minh to analyze the
popularity of company. As can be seen, among 264 replies, nearly half of the respondents
answered that they did not have any idea about what Le Bao Minh stands for. 33% of the
respondents acknowledged Le Bao Minh as an exclusive distributor of Canon; while the
warranty service and chain of company stores were still lack of awareness from the
respondents with only 13% and 12% respectively.

Awareness about Le Bao Minh

Canon’s distributor

33% Canon’s product

42% warranty service
Stores selling Canon
products
I have no idea
13%
12%
N = 264

FIGURE 15. The awareness level of the respondents about Le Bao Minh
 36

4 MARKETING PLAN FOR LE BAO MINH

This part of the thesis is to present a detailed marketing plan based on the structure of an
effective marketing plan which has already been mentioned in theoretical framework of
Chapter 2. The survey result in Chapter 3, the information gained from the interviews with
two employees of Le Bao Minh as well as secondary research will also be used to support
the plan.

4.1 Internal situational analysis

The first part of a marketing plan excluding executive summary and company overview is
the analysis of internal situation; which includes two major elements: mission and company
resources. The analysis is mainly based on the interview with Le Bao Minh staffs and the
author’s own experiences when doing practical training at the company.

4.1.1 Mission

Le Bao Minh’s mission is to collaborate with a foreign reputable company - Canon

Corporation to provide imaging products such as cameras, printers, photocopiers and fax
machines with the best quality and the most perfect after-sale services to Vietnamese
consumers. The company’s ultimate goal is to ensure all Vietnamese customers can quickly
access the newest technological products as well as easily purchasing them regardless their
location.

4.1.2 Company resources

Le Bao Minh’s total sales revenue has maintained quite consistently from year to year; and
the company has become one of strong Vietnamese’s businesses that attract the investment
of both foreign and domestic enterprises. The salary of company’s employees has improved
 37

positively recent years; for example 8-10 millions VND per month (350-400 euro) for
marketing staffs; which is considered relatively high with a Vietnamese company. During
more than ten years co-operating with Canon, Le Bao Minh has always enabled to pay
employee salary as well as other expenses in time.

Le Bao Minh has developed its own branches in six large provinces in Vietnam. The most
important and also main branch of the company is Ho Chi Minh branch with two office
buildings, one showroom and three modern stores which are co-operated with Canon
Corporation. Another successful branch is Hanoi with one office building, one own
showroom and two co-operating stores. Danang, Binh Duong and Can Tho branches have
also been developed and gained positive responses from customers. Finally, Long An, a
potential branch, has been actively expanded and it promised to become one of company’s
crucial branches in 2016. All the office buildings, showrooms and stores have still been in
good condition with modern equipment and machinery.

The total number of official employees in the organization is approximately 400 employees
from all of six branches. The company staffs who have necessary skills and experiences
related to their position are one of the most integral resources that brought the current
success of Le Bao Minh. The company has organized various monthly training classes to
improve the expertise of its staffs; for example, training about new products for sales
people and marketers, training for technical staffs, training about how to develop personal
skills as well as cultural behavior in workplace. With the friendly and caring environment,
there are many employees who have worked more than five years for the company.

Besides three different types of company resources mentioned in theoretical framework,

brand name is also an important component of resources that should not be forgotten.
American Marketing Association described a brand as “a name, term, design, symbol or
any other features” to help a company distinguish itself from other competitors. A good
brand name can create many kinds of emotion such as trust, speed, status, confidence or
durability of company’s products; and it is claimed to create a big difference in the success
of an organization (Shimp 2010, 71). After nineteen years being active in the market, Le
Bao Minh brand has been considered as a reliable brand in Vietnam, especially in the field
 38

of imaging and optical products. Customers feel secured when they notice a Canon product
which is distributed and guaranteed by Le Bao Minh – an exclusive distributor of Canon in
Vietnamese market. This result can undoubtedly be said to be a successful achievement of
the company. In spite of it, many of Vietnamese customers only acknowledge Le Bao Minh
brand as a distributor of Canon’s products; but not as a seller. According to the customer
survey in Chapter 3, among 264 replies, large percentage of the respondents - 42% had no
idea what Le Bao Minh stands for; and only 12% of the respondents knew that the company
has a chain of showrooms and stores. This is one of the major reasons why sales revenue
from company’s showrooms and stores is still low.

4.2 External situational analysis

Following the structure in theoretical framework, external situational analysis comes after
the evaluation of internal situation with two components: Porter’s five force factors – for
external micro-environmental analysis; and PESTEL analysis – for external macro-
environmental analysis.

4.2.1 Porter’s five force factors

Rivalry among existing competitors

The level of competition within camera industry in Vietnam is considered to be high. To

examine more specifically the competitive level and the position of Le Bao Minh in the
market, the company’s major competitors are divided into two cases.

- Manufacturing businesses: Le Bao Minh only sells and distributes cameras produced
by Canon. Nikon Corporation – an old popular camera company has always been a
major strong competitor of Canon; and this brand is also very famous and reliable in
Vietnamese’s consumer eyes. Besides Nikon, several other newer brands including
 39

Samsung, Sony and Panasonic are also favourite ones in Vietnam. However, in general,
among very competitive industry, the position of Canon in this market can be
considered to be strong and stable with the highest share among digital camera brands
from 2010 until present.

- Importing and purchasing businesses: As a seller of camera products, Le Bao Minh

also has to compete with an enormous number of large and small electronic
supermarkets and camera stores which import and sell different kinds of camera brands,
including Canon. Excluding a part of camera stores which are B2B customers of the
company, there are still various popular stores with lower price, more diversity of
camera brands and attractive promotion campaigns that Le Bao Minh has to compete.
Although the Canon camera brand holds strong position in the market, a chain of
company showrooms and stores still receive a little concern from consumers.

Threat of new entrants

The camera industry is generally considered to have moderate barrier to entry in

Vietnamese market. The market does not require start-up enterprises with enormous
amount of capital investment and know-how; however, it does not mean small
entrepreneurs can easily enter the market with low capital investment. Nonetheless, since
1999, and especially since joining World Trade Organization, Vietnam government has
created more equal business environment; which brought better opportunities and support
for entrepreneurs (Xinhua, 2012; Meyer et al 2006, 9). More and more digital camera
brands have appeared in Vietnamese market with various innovative features and designs;
at the same time, more and more camera stores have been launched with attractive price
and relatively good quality; which made the threat of new entrants have recently been high
in the industry. In spite of it, Canon brand and the company have still gained a moderate
number of loyal customers; which is their strongest competitive advantage that new
competitors cannot compete easily
 40

Threat of substitute products or services

The biggest substitute product that threatens the customer choice of digital camera is
smartphone. Due to the quick development of technology, smartphone companies have
produced variety of products with wide range of price and design; especially with better
quality of camera feature. Cameras of many smartphones are not only easier to use and
more convenient but also claimed to be equally good or even better than many of digital
cameras. According to Vietnam Investment Review (2015), in Vietnamese market,
smartphone’s sales revenue is expected to continue to increase gradually at least in next
five years; and among South East Asia markets, smartphone market was claimed to develop
the most in Vietnam. The consumer switch cost is also relatively low; which brings more
difficulties for camera industry.

Bargaining power of buyers

As analyzed in a previous part of Porter’s five force factors, the number of both existing
and new competitors entering the market is high; at the same time, substitute products with
similar or even better quality and performance have gradually attracted potential customers.
As a result, customers have wide range of brands and stores to choose; which means they
have high bargaining power on the sellers. Customers will easily switch to other brands if
the company does not provide innovative products, satisfactory services and effective
marketing strategies.

Bargaining power of suppliers

In case of Le Bao Minh, their only supplier is Canon Corporation because the company is
an exclusive distributor of Canon product in Vietnamese market. The bargaining power of
Canon was used to be relatively low because at that time, Canon Corporation did not have
any official company in Vietnam and they had to depend on Le Bao Minh to introduce their
products in totally new market. However, since 2012, Canon Marketing Vietnam Company
 41

has been founded with two official buildings in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to take
responsibility of marketing activities and supporting Le Bao Minh in distribution activities.
As a result, the bargaining power of Canon has increased but have not affected seriously on
the power of Le Bao Minh in Vietnamese market yet.

4.2.2 PESTEL analysis

Political and legal factor

After eighteen years struggling for the independence, Vietnam government nowadays has
reached the stable level and the country has gradually become an attractive destination for
capital investment (Ernst & Young, 10; Government Portal - The Socialist Republic of
Vietnam). The Socialist Republic of Vietnam pursues a political system of one single party
- the Communist Party of Vietnam, who has the authority to manage and perform political,
economic, social and all other issues of the country (Ernst & Young, 27). With the control
of the Communist Party and government, the country has shifted from a vulnerable political
area to a stable developing nation; which are catching up with the modernization of the
world.

Compared to the past, the government’s political decisions have changed positively in
many aspects. An outstanding change that cannot be ignored is the substantial reduction in
trade restriction level. Vietnam has joined World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007;
which has brought more opportunities for both domestic and foreign entrepreneurs to
develop in the market. Besides being a member of WTO, the country has also been active
in joining many other world trading organizations and expanded international trade with
more than 155 countries in the world (VOV, 2014). The government has also made a lot of
improvement to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from year to year; the first Foreign
Investment Law was introduced in 1988 and since then, variety of investment laws has
been launched (Ashwil & Diep 2005, 20). With the openness and stability of government,
the corporation between Le Bao Minh and Canon has not had any serious difficulties.
 42

In addition, according to Meyer, Tran and Nguyen (2006, 6), Vietnamese government has
decreased the level of intervention and control on business activities; and has given more
autonomy for individual enterprises. In 2000, the new version of Company Law was
published; which has improved the business environment for entrepreneurs – their business
is legally claimed to be as a “formally registered enterprise”. Due to the Company Law, the
number of 55,793 new registered private businesses in 2003 was not surprising; and this
number rose substantially from year to year. (Meyer et al. 2006, 8-9.)

The decisions on tax policy of Vietnamese government also have several changes that need
to take into consideration. Before 1999, there was still the discrimination about tax law
between different enterprises. However, the government has then regulated anti-
discrimination tax policies to create equal business environment for both domestic and
foreign businesses (Business Times, 2010).

Economic factor

Before the end of 1980s, Vietnam was called to be “a centrally planned economy” which
has received the major support from only Soviet Union (Jenkins 2006, 118). A centrally
planned economy is defined as an economy where the government decides and controls all
economic factors; and the demand and supply of market have no right to define the
production and prices of products (WiseGeek). Because of that, Vietnam had faced serious
economic instability and crisis; and extremely high rate of inflation; which had affected
negatively on living standard of residents. As a result, since 1986, the government has
decided to launch the economic reforms called “Doi Moi” and transformed Vietnam from
“a centrally planned economy” to “a socialist-oriented market economy” (Government
Portal – The Socialist Republic of Vietnam). Since that time, the economy of country has
been boosted positively; which is presented by several economic indicators as below.

First of all, Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) has increased significantly from year
to year. Based on the statistics provided by World Bank, the GDP growth rate of Vietnam
was at very low rate before the economic reforms policy with the percentage of only 3.8%
 43

and 2.8% in 1985 and 1986 respectively. However, since the government has started to
implement “Doi Moi”, the GDP growth rate has risen gradually and stayed with 6.0% in
2014. The GDP growth rate in 2008 – when the world economic crisis happened and
caused huge problems for many countries including Vietnam also reached 5.7%. The rapid
development of the economy and GDP create more business opportunities for
entrepreneurs, including Le Bao Minh.

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

FIGURE 16. Vietnam’s GDP growth (annual %) from 2000 to 2014. Adapted from World
Bank.

Along with the GDP rapid growth, Vietnam’s domestic economic sector has changed with
the movement from mostly agricultural activities to the balanced combination of variety of
sectors, especially the growth of industrial sector. Based on the information provided by
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, since the year 1990 until 2007, the contribution of
agriculture, forestry and fishery of Vietnam decreased from 38.7% to below 20 % of the
total GDP. In contrast, industrial and construction sectors with the percentage of only
22.7% improved dramatically to 41.7% those years. Le Bao Minh has concentrated on
industrial and service sector; which enables to catch up with the trend of country.

Another economic indicator mentioned in this part is Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
Based on the statistics provided by Tradingeconomics, in 2015, FDI in Vietnam reached
14.5 USD billion and increased by more than 2500 USD million in the fourth quarter.
Looking at this number, it is quite surprising to know that Vietnam FDI was used to be at
very low amount; the FDI flowing into the nation was only USD 0.32 billion in 1988
 44

(General Statistics Office, 2006). There are many reasons behind the substantial increase of
FDI into Vietnamese market including the stability of politics, low cost of production with
large young labor force, and especially more open government policies to encourage FDI.

Social factor

Due to the stability of government and economic development, the living standard of
Vietnamese residents both in rural and urban areas has improved positively. The percentage
of residents living below the poverty line was 58% in the early 1990s; however, this
percentage decreased to 14.5% in 2008 (Overseas Development Institute 2011, 10).
According to GlobalExchange, among developing countries, Vietnam was the first country
to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by reducing the poverty rate by 50 per
cent during the period 1990- 2015. As a result, many Vietnamese people do not have to
worry too much about affording their life; and they spend more on products and services
that help to satisfy their entertainment purposes. In addition, Vietnam is classified as a
country possessing young population with the young working-age group of 32.88% in 2014
(Tradingeconomics). Young people are more likely to accept and try new technological
products; and easier for technological businesses to reach and satisfy their needs compared
to other age groups.

Technological factor

Despite substantial rise in economy and social life, Vietnam is still a developing country
with the lack of technological development. Vietnamese products are mostly produced by
capital and labour, instead of technological equipment (Nguyen & Bui, 8). Therefore,
foreign companies with high technology and innovation would have better opportunities to
introduce their products with competitive advantage to Vietnamese market.

There are two most noticeable technological devices that have become popular in Vietnam
recent years. Firstly, the number of mobile phones entering Vietnamese market has
 45

increased dramatically from 22,500 to approximately 9.3 million in 2005; and this rate
undoubtedly continued to rise gradually from year to year (Ernst & Young, 21). The second
important technology along with mobile phones in Vietnam is internet. According to Ernst
& Young (21), since the first appearance in Vietnam in 1997, the number of residents
accessing to internet has improved substantially; and internet has gradually played an
integral part in Vietnamese people’s life. Businesses should seriously take into
consideration the popularity of mobile phones and internet to create marketing and
advertising campaigns through these two effective channels.

Along with internet, the demand of Vietnamese people in online shopping has also
improved. It is not difficult to realize most of companies in Vietnamese market has recently
opened online shopping system so that customers can easily purchase and pay for products
without coming directly to the stores (Oanh 2013). As can be seen, the lack of online
shopping system is a serious issue that Le Bao Minh should take into consideration in order
to reach and satisfy their customers better.

Ecological factor

The economic development has brought variety of benefits for the country; however, it has
also caused several worrying issues, especially related to environment. The increase in
economic sector has led to the serious rise of pollution causing from industrial activities,
deforestation or the reduction of natural resources. According to Asiafoundation (2013),
Vietnam was in the list of top ten countries with the most terrible air polluted problem in
the 2012 Environmental Performance Index.

A study research was conducted by Hai and Mai in 2012 (139-140) with the participation of
312 people to analyze the attitude and awareness of Vietnamese residents about the
environmental protection. The research concluded that there was a slight increase in
Vietnamese residents’ environmental awareness compared to the past; and the higher
educated people have more knowledge and more enthusiasm to take actions to protect the
environment. However, in general, the level of awareness and understanding about green
 46

concept of Vietnamese people are still very low. Therefore, it is not surprising to realize not
many businesses, even foreign businesses entering Vietnamese market seriously think of
introducing and marketing eco-products. Nevertheless, Vietnamese people still value
meaningful actions that put effort on creating better social life; which results in enormous
number of companies that have actively participated and organized environmental
protection campaigns.

4.3 SWOT analysis

After analyzing internal and external situational factors, the next important part in
theoretical framework is SWOT analysis. Kotler et al. (2009, 48) claimed that the final goal
of analyzing SWOT for a company is to exploit market opportunities based on the strengths
and to minimize and eliminate its own weaknesses as well as threats. Although SWOT
analysis is often criticized that it easily involves subjective decision making, it is still
considered to be one of integral parts that needs to be included in a marketing plan.

TABLE 4. SWOT analysis of Le Bao Minh.

Strengths Weaknesses

-Founded since 1997 – gain -Lack of marketing strategies.

experiences and reputation in market. Most marketing activities are
-Official exclusive distributor of dependent on Canon.
Canon products in Vietnam. -Most of employees do not have
Internal -The large number of employees with high skill in English.
suitable skills related to their position -Lack of customer awareness in
in various branches. terms of company’s own stores.
-Company stores are located in -Lack of online shopping system.
populated location. -Company websites and Facebook
-Long-term partnership with B2B page are very simple and
customers. unattractive.
 47

-Canon is a famous brand – many

customers are loyal users of the brand.

Opportunities Threats
-The demand of camera products
-Many strong competitors enter in
increases significantly among different
the market.
regions and different customer groups.
-Rapid appearance of camera
-The government policies for
products shipped from other
enterprises have been less strict.
foreign market with lower price.
External -The living standard of residents has
-More consumption of substitute
improved and the majority of
products, especially smartphones.
population are young generation.
-Technological development of
Vietnam is still low  they support
actively modern foreign technological
equipment.

4.4 Customer analysis

Next integral step of a marketing plan is the analysis of customers; including the
segmentation of the market and the choice of target markets.

4.4.1 Market segmentation

Burnett (2008) identified two key objectives of segmentation task. Firstly, segmenting the
market is to minimize company’s risks when launching a product or service marketing
program. Secondly, the company can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing
actions when they put effort toward one group of customers. (Burnett 2008, 35.)
 48

In general, Le Bao Minh has provided wide range of cameras for various types of
customers. The company divided the whole big market into smaller segments and chose the
most potential segments to plan business and marketing strategies that fit the needs of each
group.

- Geographic segmentation: The company was founded in Ho Chi Minh City – the
biggest city of Vietnam; and then expanded the branches in Hanoi – capital city and
some other large cities and provinces such as Danang and Binh Duong. As can be seen,
the company focuses mainly on urban high-populated areas to reach potential
customers. The young population with higher living standard, more openness on
technological products and increasing demand on entertainment are major reasons why
the company chose to concentrate on urban areas.

- Demographic segmentation: Firstly, in case of age, Le Bao Minh mainly targets

young generation by providing variety of products with wide range of price and nice
design for them. Recently, the company has started to concentrate on adults who have
already had their own family by opening studio service mainly for moms and kids. The
company has also actively participated in events related to family to easily introduce the
product to this customer group. Besides age, another important element in demographic
segmentation is gender. Camera products used to attract mostly male customers;
however, there has been a substantial increase in the number of Vietnamese female
customers concerning about photography and cameras. As a result, the company as well
as Canon Corporation has decided to focus more on female customers; there are even
several Canon cameras that target mainly women such as PowerShot N2 with pink/
white colour and sophisticated design.

- Psychographic segmentation: Based on psychographic traits, the company has

segmented and decided to put much effort on those who mainly uses camera for
entertainment purpose and for amateur photographing. The company still provides
cameras specialized for professional photographers; however, marketing programs used
to be less concentrated on this group of customers. Nonetheless, this small group of
customers are actually those who are willing to spend the most on cameras as well as
 49

concerning the most on product quality – the company’s main strength. As a result,
currently, Le Bao Minh has started first movement in finding how to target this
potential customer group the most effectively.

- Behavioural segmentation: In terms of behavioural segmentation, the company has

focused the most on usage rate and loyalty status of customers. Since the middle of
2014, Le Bao Minh has collaborated with Canon Corporation to run customer loyalty
card to express the appreciation with their loyal customers. Long-term heavy users
would receive many special treatments; for example, huge discounts on company
products, priority on warranty and support service; or invitation to company’s special
events. However, even after a year and a half, loyal card electronic system still faced
several technical problems; and Le Bao Minh are in the progress of updating and
completing this system.

4.4.2 Market targeting

As can be seen as above, segmentation strategy the company decided to concentrate on is

differentiated marketing. Le Bao Minh has targeted several customer groups; and launched
different marketing programs that fit the needs of each group instead of using one single
strategy for the whole market. In spite of it, the number of advertising and marketing
actions specialized for each segment is still low.

4.5 Competitor analysis

Following the structure in theoretical framework, competitor analysis is presented in this

part to find out basic competitor information as well as Le Bao Minh’s position in the
market. As mentioned in Porter’s five force factor, competitors of the company can be
divided into manufacturing businesses and purchasing businesses.

- Manufacturing businesses:
 50

The biggest competitors of Le Bao Minh and Canon are Nikon Corporation and their
exclusive authorized distributor in Vietnam – VIC Vietnam. Canon and Nikon has
always competed with each other in every single market; and Vietnam is not an
exception. Both of brands have variety of camera products from compact camera with
simple use and cheap price to DSLR camera with more complex use and expensive
price. Whenever one company introduces a camera product, another will immediately
publishes a new product with relative equal price and quality. That is why there is an
enormous number of comparison and reviews about Canon and Nikon’s similar
products appearing on internet to help the users make decisions on which one they
should choose to purchase. In general, Nikon was established before the appearance of
Canon and it is a very traditional camera brand in the world. However, in Vietnamese
market, Canon was fairly quicker than Nikon in terms of introduction its products
through the distributor – Le Bao Minh.

Besides Nikon, Le Bao Minh needs to take into consideration several other strong
competitors including Sony, Panasonic and Samsung in Vietnamese market. Being
different from Canon and Nikon Corporation, these brands have their own distribution
channel in Vietnam without the corporation with exclusive distributors such as Le Bao
Minh and VIC. Many product categories; for example mobile phones and electronic
appliances from these brands have already been popular and reliable in consumers’
eyes. As a result, although Canon and Nikon are claimed to be two traditional digital
camera brands, the introduction of cameras with high quality, more competitive price
and attractive specifications from newer competitors mentioned above has also been
accepted quickly by consumers. Another outstanding feature that these companies did
better is the online shopping system while both Canon-Le Bao Minh and Nikon-VTC
have not focused on online system yet. However, among three above brands, only Sony
seriously focuses on digital camera in Vietnamese market while Panasonic and
Samsung focus more on their other product categories. When accessing their
Vietnamese official websites, it is easy to realize that among different product
categories, camera category is not focused much.
 51

There is no latest statistics related to the market share of Canon and other competitors
in terms of digital camera in Vietnamese market. However, based on the statistics
collected by marketing department of Le Bao Minh in 2011, Canon held the first
position both in compact and DSLR camera category with 32% and 51.4% respectively
in Vietnam. In terms of compact camera, the second position was not Nikon but Sony
with 27%; while in DSLR section, Nikon undoubtedly caught up closely with Canon
with the percentage of 45.6%. Although this statistics have been already out-of-dated,
Canon brand definitely still maintains the leading position in Vietnamese market; which
is hard to replace by other competitors. As a result, choosing Canon products to
distribute and sell has been already a strong competitive advantage of Le Bao Minh.

- Purchasing businesses: The number of electronic supermarkets and stores in Vietnam

is enormous. There are many popular businesses in the market; which prevents the
development and customer awareness of Le Bao Minh and Canon’s stores. Based on the
result of customer survey, nearly half of the respondents answer that they chose large
popular electronic supermarkets to purchase their cameras; and in general, large
electronic supermarkets are Vietnamese customers’ favourite choices when deciding a
destination to buy electronic products including cameras. Besides that, many customers
who only want to spend average amount of money on purchasing cameras choose to
buy already-used-products from individuals through online shopping.

Among various strong competitors, this thesis focuses on three big favourite businesses
in Vietnamese’s consumer eyes; that are Nguyen Kim, Cho Lon Electronics and online
store Lazada. The basic evaluation of Le Bao Minh and these three competitors are
listed in Table 5.

TABLE 5. Evaluation of Le Bao Minh and three other strong competitors in the market.

Le Bao Minh Nguyen Kim Cho Lon Lazada

11 official
Store 15 stores over the 31 stores over the
stores in 6 Online store
location country country
provinces
 52

Online
No Yes Yes Yes
system
Customer Very high
Relatively low High High
awareness currently
Variety of Only Canon
Diverse Diverse Very diverse
products products
Not very
reliable. Can
Quality of be good or
Very high Fairly good Fairly good
products bad, new or
second-hand
products
Diverse –
Price High Moderate Moderate
mostly cheap
Delivery
Limited All regions All regions All regions
service
Many warranty Big number of Big number of
Need to
Warranty centre with warranty centre warranty centre with
improve
service high qualified with relatively relatively high
more
service high service service
Very high
Limited,
amount of
mainly
Very high amount Very high amount of promotion,
Promotion discounted
of promotion promotion mostly
programs and
discounted
events
programs

Based on Table 5, a canvas consisting of major features and the focus level of each
business is presented in Figure 17 below.
 53

6
5
4
Le Bao Minh
3 Nguyen Kim
2 Cho Lon
1 Lazada
0
Product Product Warranty Physical Delivery Promotion Online
quality price service stores service systems

FIGURE 17. Strategic canvas of Le Bao Minh and its competitors.

As can be seen from the Table 5 and Figure 17, Le Bao Minh’s most outstanding feature
compared to competitors is high quality of products. Although cameras sold by Le Bao
Minh have higher prices, customers do not have to worry about the quality and origin of
products because the products are officially provided by Canon Corporation. Besides that,
although Le Bao Minh has less warranty centers around Vietnam compared to Nguyen Kim
and Cho Lon, the company has done better job in ensuring service quality. In addition,
company’s warranty service is provided not only for customers buying products from the
company but also for all Canon customers. While Le Bao Minh’s customers receive free
warranty service for two years, Canon users buying products from other sources still can
receive warranty service of Le Bao Minh with the reasonable level of price. According to
the survey, warranty service and product quality are two most important elements
customers value when deciding where to buy their cameras. As a result, the company
should continue to maintain these two features as competitive advantage over competitors
instead of trying to reduce the price or expanding more warranty centers with low qualified
service. However, there are still several weaknesses compared to competitors that are
necessary to be improved; that is the need of opening online system and increasing
promotion activities. The chain of physical stores should be kept and improved; however,
the company should at the same time invest in online shopping system to meet the
increasing demand of customers.
 54

4.6 Marketing mix

A next part of marketing plan following theoretical framework concentrates on marketing

mix – a common and important way to create effective marketing strategies with four main
elements: product, price, place and promotion.

4.6.1 Product

As described in Chapter 2, to provide a product or service that can bring the highest value
for customers and create strong competitive advantage, a business needs to analyze their
product or service in three levels: Core benefit, actual product and augmented product.

- Core benefit: Provide Canon products to help satisfy photography need of Vietnamese
customers.

- Actual product: The main Canon camera categories Le Bao Minh focuses on include
PowerShot, IXUS and DSLR. PowerShot and IXUS with variety of design and
specifications mainly target teenagers, seniors and female users; while DSLR camera
with more complicated features and higher quality of image are aimed at young adults,
especially male customers more. Le Bao Minh put a lot of effort on increasing their
image as the best qualified Canon provider. Cameras from the business normally have
higher price compared to other competitors but the product quality is very reliable. As
can be seen from the survey result, 40% of the respondents chose to buy Canon camera
due to the brand and 33% due to product quality.

Besides providing Canon camera, Le Bao Minh has currently opened studio service –
photographing and printing photos for customers especially family and kids since the
middle of 2015; which other competitors have not had yet. The studio service has
received positive responses from customers and sales revenue taken from this service
cannot be ignored. The studio service is believed to partly contribute to improve sales
revenue of other company products. Taken an example from two main company stores
 55

in Ho Chi Minh City – Vincom store without studio and Vivo store with studio, sales
revenue received from Vivo is higher than from Vincom although Vincom store’s
location is more ideal and it was opened much longer than Vivo.

- Augmented product: As mentioned before in Competitor analysis, the company is

doing a good job in providing warranty service for customers. In terms of delivery
service, compared to other competitors, the delivery system of Le Bao Minh is still lack
of profession and expansion level.

4.6.2 Price

Different pricing strategies used by Le Bao Minh are described specifically in Table 6 with
the support of definition from Kotler (284-291) and Whalley (2010, 88-90).

TABLE 6. Pricing strategies used by Le Bao Minh.

Set prices for various products within a product line.
There are variety of choices among PowerShot, IXUS and DSLR
Product line
categories with wide range of price and design. This strategy can
pricing
strengthen the differences in price and quality between different products
in one line.
Optional- Set prices for accessory products along with main product.
product The company set prices for lens, camera bags and memory cards –
pricing necessary products that need to buy along with camera.
Set a reduced price for the group of products and services.
Product-
The combination between camera and printers; or camera and studio
bundle
service at lower price to boost the sales of both two product categories.
pricing

Discount and Reduce the price to reward customers for certain occasions/ purposes
allowance Discount programs in special occasions such as Women Day, Tet
pricing Holiday, Christmas or company’s anniversary day.
 56

Consider the psychology of prices; for example, customers usually

Psychological believe higher priced products deliver higher quality
pricing The price of company product is more expensive compared to other
competitors; at the same time, more reliable quality.

4.6.3 Place

Due to the main objective of the thesis, this marketing plan only focuses on B2C customers,
not on B2B customers – retail stores or company intermediaries. Therefore, the third part of
marketing mix is only used to analyze the chain of company stores. There are two types of
company stores; one is called showroom – which is owned by the company itself and
another is called Canon Image Square – which is the collaboration between Le Bao Minh
and Canon. The chain of stores has been opened in the most populated urban cities and
provinces in Vietnam with good location in centre of cities or in popular shopping malls.
The stores are mostly in new condition with nice decoration and clever display of products.
However, despite significant increase in the number of internet users, the company has not
launched online shopping system to increase sales revenue from these stores yet.

4.6.4 Promotion

The last but not least element of marketing mix is promotion. Along with the definition
adapted from Kayode (2014, 26) and Shimp (2010, 7), this part will present several main
components of promotion that Le Bao Minh has concentrated on.

Advertising

Any form of non-personal communications of products through an identifiable source is

called advertising. Le Bao Minh’s major source of advertising is through traditional mass
 57

advertising, mainly newspaper and magazines; online advertising on online newspapers as

well as advertising directly at stores. Based on the result collected from survey, traditional
sources are becoming less effective to reach targeted customers while there is an increasing
percentage in online sources, especially photography forums and social media pages.
Online advertisement is generally less expensive and reach more targeted customers than
the use of traditional advertisement. However, company’s website and Facebook fanpage
has currently received little concern from the company; at the same time, the company
mostly does not focus on advertising on photography forums; while the use of traditional
advertising sources is preferred. In term of store advertising, the company seems to be on
the right track. Any products the company wants to increase sales revenue are placed at the
most easy-to-see location at stores with clever and attractive decoration. A large TV screen
combined with colourful banners and posters are also displayed in front of the stores to
attract the concern of customers passing by.

Sales promotion

When a business uses incentives such as samples, coupons, premiums and refunds to
encourage customers to purchase products temporarily, that business is using sales
promotion. Among different promotion components, sales promotion is what Le Bao Minh
concentrates on the most. The company has tried different sales promotion strategies
including couponing – customers receive coupons in special events to get 15% discount of
price, premium technique – offering small free products for customers such as notebooks,
bags, water bottles or T-shirt with Canon and Le Bao Minh logo; and patronage reward –
offer customer loyalty card so that customers can get special discount or other rewards after
certain level of purchase. However, as mentioned in the background of the thesis, sales
promotion is only effective to use in short period of time, not for long term. The company
has tried to build “premium” image with high quality and high price in customers’ mind;
which can be harmed by too much discounted programs. In addition, the continuous
discount can result in the complaints from company’s B2B customers while sales revenue
received from these discounted programs are not high as expected.
 58

Public relation

Main goal is to create good relationship with all business partners such as employees,
suppliers, government, the public and consumers (Shimp 2010, 536). Le Bao Minh is a
business that receives positive image in public with great effort in charity activities. The
company and Chairwoman – Mrs. Le Thi Ngoc Hai has received many certificates due to
the contribution on charity work and country’s development for many continuous years.
The company is also an important and trustful partner with enormous number of retail
companies all over the country. Unluckily, the awareness of B2C customers on the
operating purposes and activities of Le Bao Minh is still low.

The company has always actively co-operated with Canon Corporation to participate and
open booths in different events. These kinds of events help the company to introduce new
products directly to customers as well as improving sales revenue. One of successful
achievements of Le Bao Minh and Canon recently was the effort of introducing new service
– “Shoot and Print” studio to reach new customer segment – family, especially mothers
through a Vietnamese famous event named “Moms and Kids”. Adapted from the interview
with Le Bao Minh’s marketing manager (2015), total sales revenue received from two
times of events were 1,554 USD in November event and 5,100 USD in December event
with the approximate number of printed photos up to 90,000 photos. However, in spite of
very successful results, while Canon image has increased in customers’ mind, there is still
low number of customers recognizing Le Bao Minh brand.

One of the most successful efforts of the company in raising customer awareness is through
free photography and photoshop workshops for Canon users. These workshops received
positive feedback from customers and the number of workshops has been expanded
significantly over years. The increasing popularity of these workshops also helps the
company to reach a big group of target customers – young amateur camera users.
 59

5 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

Turning back to the research question, the main objective for this thesis is to answer the
question: “What are effective marketing strategies for Le Bao Minh to attract customers
choosing Canon’s camera products sold by the company and maintain long term customer
relationship with them?”. After analyzing different aspects of a marketing plan for Le Bao
Minh, several recommendations on company marketing strategies are listed below based on
marketing mix - 4Ps.

In the first element of 4Ps – Product, being an exclusive distributor of Canon in Vietnamese
market and being a leading company providing the best quality of Canon cameras are two
main competitive advantages the company should maintain and emphasize when
conducting any marketing plan. That is what makes the company become “premium” brand
in customers’ mind and stand out in the market with many strong competitors. Improving
the quality of warranty and support service as well as increasing the amount of advertising
for this service could also help to satisfy current customers and increase target customer’s
awareness of the company. In addition, Le Bao Minh should expand and build more
professional delivery service to reach customers who live far away from company’s chain
of stores.

In Price – the second element of 4Ps, the product line pricing and product bundle pricing
are two pricing strategies the company is advised to concentrate the most while the other
pricing strategies should be used moderately. Product line pricing helps to emphasize the
value difference between each product in line; while product bundling contributes to boost
the sales of not only cameras but other company products while the “premium” image of
company is not affected seriously.

Thirdly, in terms of Place, the company’s main problem is the lack of online shopping
system while most of strong competitors in the market have. Internet has become an
integral part in the life of Vietnamese people; as a result, the implementation of online
shopping is undoubtedly necessary for the company to reach target customers more
effectively.
 60

Finally, in Promotion component, choosing differentiated marketing strategy – different

marketing and promotion strategies for different customer groups – is a current wise
decision of the company.
Teenagers and young adults using cameras for entertainment or amateur photographing
purpose hold a large percentage of camera users and are company’s main target customers.
As a result, firstly, the company should reduce the amount of advertising on traditional
advertising sources such as magazines and newspapers; and increase the investment on
online advertising. The Facebook fanpage and websites need to be updated and introduced
more to customers. Furthermore, the company is advised to co-operate with popular
photography forums for two reasons. Firstly, young customers are more likely to follow the
recommendations and reviews from famous reliable photographers; and secondly, small
photography contests with attractive prizes can be implemented more easily with the
support of these photography forums to raise the awareness and create positive image of the
company in young camera users’ mind. Finally, photography class organized by Le Bao
Minh should be focused more with the increase in number of classes and lesson content.
The second potential customer group Le Bao Minh has planned to put more effort in is
family, especially mothers and children. The “Shoot and Print” studio service has been
launched to attract this customer group; which is advised to maintain and improve more by
advertising and actively joining events related to the segment. Besides co-operating with
Canon Corporation to participate in the events, the company should boost the amount of
time joining popular events separately. As being evaluated in the thesis, although the results
achieved from the events are often successful, Le Bao Minh brand has still not been
acknowledged by customers, only Canon brand. Therefore, the company should balance
between the collaboration with Canon Corporation and the individual marketing activities
to achieve better results in terms of raising customer’s awareness. Another strategy to reach
this potential customer group is to open free short photography workshops in weekends
about how to shoot and capture the best moments of children for mothers and family who
bought cameras from the company. In terms of advertising, direct email and SMS are two
tools that are supposed to be the most suitable with this customer group.
Professional photographers were not company’s main target customers; however, the
company is planning to target this customer group more in near future. Therefore, based on
 61

evaluation of marketing plan, one recommendation for the company is to partner with
photography and film editing training schools to reach students studying there. Although
these students have not been professional photographers yet, they have clear purpose of
becoming professional photographers or pursuing career related to photography in the
future. Le Bao Minh can contact with the managers of these schools to sometimes set up a
booth or organize an event at the schools to display products and introduce about the
company; or plan a special discounted program only for the students studying there when
they purchase company products.

In conclusion, two major problems the company needs to tackle are the lack of investment
on marketing and the ineffectiveness of several current promotion strategies. To compete
with many strong competitors, especially popular electronic shopping malls and to raise
brand awareness and maintain long-term relationship with customers, the company needs to
put more effort on marketing activities instead of depending too much on Canon
Corporation.
 62

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 67

APPENDICES

Appendix 1. Interview with marketing manager of Le Bao Minh

- Company’s main marketing activities from the beginning of September to the end of
December. How many events did the company participate in during these times?
- What are effective strategies and ineffective strategies among them? The reasons for
ineffectiveness.
- The marketing strategy in 2016. Will the company decide to expand to any other
markets/ customer groups?
- Did marketing activities receive any support from Canon marketing team?
- Did studio service receive positive responses from customers?
- Any customers’ complaints and opinions?
 68

Appendix 2. Interview with Le Bao Minh staff from Business planning department

- Will there be any new camera products coming up in 2016?

- The price of current Canon camera products compared with competitors
- The sales revenue from each store and each camera product category.
- Does company plan to expand the branches in any other cities?
- Your comments about Canon’s camera products as a customer
 69

Appendix 3. Customer survey

1. Do you buy Canon camera?

2. Your gender?
3. Your age?
4. Which types of Canon camera do you buy?
5. What is your main purpose of buying camera?
6. Do you buy/ intend to buy any other Canon product below besides camera?
7. Why did you choose to buy Canon camera?
8. Where do you buy Canon camera?
9. How do you rate the importance of each element below when deciding a place to buy
camera? Put the following sections in order from 1 to 5 with 1 = Most important; 5 =
Least important
- High product quality
- Cheap price
- Promotion activities
- Quick delivery service
- Professional warranty/ support service
- Online shopping system
- Physical stores
10. Where did you find out about your camera product before buying?
11. What do you know about LBM Joint Stock Investment Company? (can choose more
than 1)
 70

Appendix 4. Analysis of answers

One- dimensional tabulations

Question 1: Did you buy Canon camera?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

Yes 207 80%
No 52 20%
Total 259 100%

Question 2: Your gender?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

Male 124 60%
Female 83 40%
Total 207 100%

Question 3: Your age?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

Below 18 62 30%
18 – 24 85 41%
25 – 34 47 23%
35+ 13 6%
Total 207 100%

Question 4: Which types of Canon camera did you buy?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

PowerShot 63 31%
IXUS 38 18%
DSLR 103 50%
Mirrorless 3 1%
Total 207 100%
 71

Question 5: What is your main purpose of buying camera?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

Satisfy photographing hobby 117 56%
Amateur photographing
49 24%
career
Professional photographing
18 9%
career
Essential for my job 12 6%
A gift to others 11 5%
Total 207 100%

Question 6: Do you buy/ intend to buy any other Canon product below besides camera?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

Printer 51 25%
Photocopier 1 0%
Scanner 2 1%
Not at all 153 74%
Total 207 100%

Question 7: Why did you choose to buy Canon camera?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

The brand 83 40%
Product quality 69 33%
Suitable price 15 7%
Variety of choices
37 18%
with nice design
Easy-to-use products 3 2%
Total 207 100%
 72

Question 8: Where did you buy Canon camera?

Answers Number of responses Percentage of responses

Canon Image Square 24 12%
Le Bao Minh showroom 21 10%
Popular electronic
89 43%
supermarkets
Small/medium camera stores 5 2%
Online shops/ online sales 41 20%
Events/ Exhibitions 24 12%
Foreign markets 3 1%
Total 207 100%

Question 9: How do you rate the importance of each element below when deciding a place
to buy camera? Put the following sections in order from 1 to 5 with 1 = Most important; 5 =
Least important.

Answers 1 2 3 4 5 Total
108 90 9 0 0 207
Product quality
(52%) (44%) (4%) (0%) (0%) (100%)
89 82 31 5 0 207
Cheap price
(43%) (40%) (15%) (2%) (0%) (100%)
76 81 42 8 0 207
Promotion activities
(37%) (39%) (20%) (4%) (0%) (100%)
69 73 63 2 0 207
Delivery service
(33%) (35%) (31%) (1%) (0%) (100%)
Warranty/ Support 156 49 2 0 0 207
service (75%) (24%) (1%) (0%) (0%) (100%)
53 79 54 12 9 207
Online shopping system
(26%) (38%) (26%) (6%) (4%) (100%)
56 83 54 12 2 207
Physical stores
(27%) (40%) (26%) (6%) (1%) (100%)
 73

Question 10: Where did you find out about your camera product before buying?

Percentage of
Answers Number of responses
responses
TV advertisement 2 1%
Newspaper/ Magazine 9 4%
Banners/ Posters at public 13 6%
Online advertisement 22 11%
Company website/ social media page 37 18%
Photography forum/ groups 43 21%
Events/ Exhibitions 22 11%
Relative/Friend recommendation 59 28%
Total 207 100%

Question 11: What do you know about LBM Joint Stock Investment Company? (can
choose more than 1)

Percentage of
Answers Number of responses
responses
Canon’s distributor 87 33%
Canon’s product warranty service 35 13%
Stores selling Canon products 32 12%
I have no idea 110 42%
Total 264 100%
 74

Cross tabulations: based on gender and age group

Which types of camera did you buy?

Male Female
PowerShot 29 (23%) 34 (41%)
IXUS 22 (18%) 16 (19%)
DSLR 72 (58%) 31 (38%)
Mirrorless 1 (1%) 2 (2%)
Total 124 (100%) 83 (100%)

Below 18 18 - 24 25 -34 35+

PowerShot 25 (40%) 20 (24%) 13 (28%) 5 (38%)
IXUS 15 (24%) 14 (16%) 6 (13%) 3 (24%)
DSLR 21 (34%) 49 (58%) 28 (59%) 5 (38%)
Mirrorless 1 (2%) 2 (2%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Total 62 (100%) 85 (100%) 47 (100%) 13 (100%)

What is your main purpose of buying camera?

Male Female
Hobby 69 (56%) 48 (58%)
Amateur
28 (22%) 21 (25%)
photographer
Professional
12 (10%) 6 (7%)
photographer
Essential for job 7 (6%) 5 (6%)
A gift 8 (6%) 3 (4%)
Total 124 (100%) 83 (100%)
 75

Below 18 18 - 24 25 -34 35+

Hobby 58 (94%) 43 (51%) 14 (30%) 2 (15%)
Amateur
4 (6%) 31 (36%) 12 (25%) 2 (15%)
photographer
Professional
0 (0%) 5 (6%) 9 (19%) 4 (31%)
photographer
Essential for job 0 (0%) 5 (6%) 6 (13%) 1 (8%)
A gift 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 6 (13%) 4 (31%)
Total 62 (100%) 85 (100%) 47 (100%) 13 (100%)

Where did you buy Canon camera?

Male Female
Canon Image Square 11 13
Le Bao Minh showroom 15 6
Popular electronic
50 39
supermarkets
Small/medium camera stores 4 1
Online shops/ online sales 28 13
Events/ Exhibitions 14 10
Foreign markets 2 1
Total 124 (100%) 83 (100%)

Below 18 18 - 24 25 -34 35+

Canon Image Square 4 (6%) 4 (5%) 10 (21%) 6 (46%)
Le Bao Minh showroom 3 (5%) 6 (7%) 8 (17%) 4 (31%)
Popular electronic
19 (31%) 48 (57%) 19 (40%) 3 (23%)
supermarkets
Small/medium camera
0 (0%) 4 (5%) 1 (2%) 0 (0%)
stores
Online shops/ online sales 23 (37%) 13 (15%) 5 (11%) 0 (0%)
 76

Events/ Exhibitions 13 (21%) 8 (9%) 3 (7%) 0 (0%)

Foreign markets 0 (0%) 2 (2%) 1 (2%) 0 (0%)
Total 62 (100%) 85 (100%) 47 (100%) 13 (100%)

Where did you find out about your camera product before buying?

Male Female
TV advertisement 0 (0%) 2 (3%)
Newspaper/ Magazine 8 (6%) 1 (1%)
Banners/ Posters at public 6 (5%) 7 (8%)
Online advertisement 14 (11%) 8 (10%)
Company website/ social media page 21 (17%) 16 (19%)
Photography forum/ groups 30 (24%) 13 (16%)
Events/ Exhibitions 11 (9%) 11 (13%)
Relative/Friend recommendation 34 (28%) 25 (30%)
Total 124 (100%) 83 (100%)

Below 18 18 - 24 25 -34 35+

TV advertisement 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (15%)
Newspaper/ Magazine 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 4 (9%) 5 (38%)
Banners/ Posters at public 1 (2%) 3 (4%) 8 (17%) 1 (8%)
Online advertisement 12 (19%) 8 (9%) 2 (4%) 0 (0%)
Company website/ social
13 (21%) 16 (19%) 7 (15%) 1 (8%)
media page
Photography forum/
8 (13%) 24 (28%) 11 (23%) 0 (0%)
groups
Events/ Exhibitions 10 (16%) 10 (12%) 2 (4%) 0 (0%)
Relative/Friend
18 (29%) 24 (28%) 13 (28%) 4 (31%)
recommendation
Total 62 (100%) 85 (100%) 47 (100%) 13 (100%)