Famous brands rushing to launch products for popular consumers

Many Vietnamese enterprises, the owners of well known brands and the manufacturers of high grade products, have been trying to expand their business by launching the products for popular consumers which have lower prices.
The new table wares of Minh Long Porcelain Company called “Co Tim” with a reasonable price, have caught the special attention from the public right after the products were launched into the market. This is for the first time, Minh Long, a well known brand of high grade china products, launches a product with low sale price designed for popular consumers.

Ly Huy Sang, Deputy General Director of Minh Long 1 Company, said that the production cost of “Co Tim” is lower than other products, because Co Tim has simpler design which allows to be manufactured more easily. However, the quality and safety of the product are in no way inferior to other high grade products of Minh Long.

“We are trying to develop the domestic market, and we want more and more Vietnamese people to be able to own Minh Long’s products,” he said.

The competition of famous-branded goods with reasonable prices

It is a growing tendency that well known brands are targeting popular customers, which explains why not only Minh Long, but many other manufacturers have also been trying to launch low-cost products.

Nutifood, for example, has recently introduced a new product – the cereal nutrition – designed for the consumers in rural areas and workers at industrial zones. In fact, Nutifood’s cereal nutrition products have been available on the market since 2007, but the products target office workers and consumers in urban areas. As Nutifood decides to introduce the product in rural areas, it has renewed the packages and changes the weights to lower the production costs to make the products fit new targeted customers.

Viet Tien, a well known garment brand, in 2010, launched a new line of products with brand “Viet Long” which target workers, students and rural area youths. With the support of the “mother” brand “Viet Tien”, “Viet Long” has become well known as a brand for popular customers.

The wise move

Commenting about the tendency of developing the brands of products for popular customers, analysts say Vietnamese enterprises are making a wise step to expand business. Famous-branded goods with reasonable prices will be the choice of many customers, especially when they have to fasten their belt in the high inflation period.

Tran Anh Tuan, from The Pathfinder consultancy firm, has cited a lot of cases, where a company has different brands targeting different groups of customers. Nokia, for example, has Vertu band for high income clients, Toyota has Lexus. In Vietnam, Viet Tien has Sanciaro brand as high grade brand, and has Viet Long brand for popular customers.

Tuan said that this is an effective method of expanding market segments with niche brands. Though companies have to spend money to popularize new brands, they will get more clients. Especially, the launching of new brands will satisfy high grade clients, who do not want to change their images.

In case of Minh Long 1, the company is using the same brand “Minh Long” for all of its lines of products. This allows the company to save money on popularizing products, thus allowing reducing the production costs of products. Of course, the launching of low cost products will not satisfy some customers, because using Minh Long’s products will not be the “privilege” of rich people any more.

However, Sang from Minh Long said that Minh Long will not “abandon” its high grade customers and will continue marketing new special products.- SGTT

Tags: vietnam retail industry, Vietnam retail market