Assessment 1: Individual Secondary Research Report

Course code and name:​ COMM2698 - Contemporary PR Research

Lecturer:​ Farida Kbar

Name:​ Nguyen Thi Nhat Phuong

Student’s ID:​ s3752193

"I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and

agree to the content and expectations of the Assessment Declaration"

I give RMIT University permission to use my work as an exemplar and/or for

showcase/exhibition display . This consent will remain valid forever. 

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1. BACKGROUND

a. THE BRAND

Established in 1892 in America, Coca Cola has quickly become the

world’s leading manufacturer in the non-alcoholic beverage sector and

expanded its business all over the world (Coca Cola 2020). In 1960, Coca Cola

Company started its operation in Vietnam. Since then, Coca Cola Vietnam has

been developing dramatically, positioning itself as the leader in the

non-alcoholic beverage market (Euromonitor 2019). Until now, their products

have been distributed widely across Vietnam. Besides the far-reaching supply

networks, their products' variants are diversified, ranging from traditional to

new-flavoured offers with affordable prices such as Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke,

Coke Zero, Fanta, and Sprite, to cater for rising demand of larger customer

groups.

Regarding the carbonated soft drink landscape in Vietnam, due to a

rapidly growing young population with increasing beverage consumption,

Vietnamese market is believed to emerge as one of the highest potentials in

the region, opening up promising land for corporates to gain higher profit

margins. Coca Cola is currently coming out on top with the largest market

share, closely followed by PepsiCo - the prominent direct competitor of Coca

Cola in Vietnam (Euromonitor 2019). PepsiCo shares the similar key product

lines as Coca Cola with Pepsi, 7Up, Revive, Mirinda, Aquafina, and Twister.

The competition between the two giants taking place globally have been

fiercely prolonged domestically (Tran 2018).

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 b. MARKETING PROBLEM

Despite opportunities, there presents challenges Coca Cola should

address. The end of 2019 witnessed a significantly transformative

phenomenon across the world - Covid-19 pandemic. The rapid outbreak has

resulted in a tremendous impact on the Vietnamese consumption habits

(Nielsen 2020). According to Nielsen (2020) survey, the majority of

Vietnamese people have restricted their visits to wet markets, supermarkets,

and grocery stores. As customers stay in their residences and limit outside

activities, out-of-home consumption channels like restaurants, bars, or

large-scale events are sharply reduced. Another newly-adopted behavior is

that consumers have shown growing attention to healthy products rather than

soft drinks even after society returned to normal life (Vietnam Times 2020).

Due to these changing behaviours in the event of Coronavirus, the soft

drinks category has experienced a downward pattern in consumption

(Euromonitor 2019). The shrunk customer demand, along with the

competition among active players in the market, made the game even more

challenging for Coca Cola. According to Pappu, Quester and Cooksey (2005);

Jung & Sung (2008), brand perception has a considerable influence on

customers' purchase intention and customers’ buying decisions. As a result, to

achieve the ultimate goal which is remaining leading in the market, brand

perception plays a crucial role in building brand communication strategy.

This research aims to evaluate Coca Cola's brand perception so that

further approaches could be adopted to responsively tackle the brand

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challenge, empowering Coca Cola to maintain its dominant position in the

market.

c. LITERATURE REVIEW

Aaker (1991) conceptualizes brand perception as the sum of thoughts in

customers' memory connected to a brand that distinguish it within the

cluttered market. The whole of feelings, attitudes, and experiences that a

consumer has about a brand happens from awareness stage to the phase when

they interact with products and experience the brand (Foroudi et al. 2018).

Operationally, brand perception is complex, with several definitions

and multiple ways to approach it. Keller (1993) defines brand perception

through brand image and perceived quality, whereas (Jung & Sung 2008;

Cornwell et al. 2011) claims that it is essential to measure brand perception by

brand fondness and brand awareness. In this study, the measurement of

brand perception consists of these following dimensions: brand association,

brand experience, and customer satisfaction (Aaker 2009). Among the variety

of possible measurements of brand perception available in previous literature,

these three components are focused since they cover the wide spectrum of

customer journey. Furthermore, they are frequently discussed in prior reliable

literature that can ensure validity. However, measuring brand experience is

beyond the scope of the research so it is not covered under this study.

According to (Foroudi et al. 2018), brand associations can be categorized into

two elements: functional attributes of the products and emotional associations

with the brand. Therefore, in order to deeply understand how customers

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perceive a brand, rational and emotional connection between the brand and

customers should be taken into account.

d. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

1. To measure the level of brand association among the

target audience during the period of November 2019 to

July 2020 through two latest TVCs of Coca Cola and Pepsi

Vietnam on Youtube.

2. To evaluate the level of customer satisfaction among the

target audience through the analysis of comments and

reviews on e-commerce sites (Tiki and Shopee) during the

period of January 2020 to July 2020.

e. RESEARCH DESIGN

The report is conducted as a secondary textual research.

f. TARGET CHARACTERISTICS

Target audience characteristics are presented as follows.

Demographics

The primary population is defined as ​Generation Z and ​Millennials

living in Ho Chi Minh, Ha Noi, Da Nang, aged from 18 to 34.

Psychographics

They are mainstreamers who highly value love, family. Therefore, they

are considered as the connected generation. They are easily attracted by

something creative and inspiring and they love being surprised. They

have distinctive thinkings, expectations than older generations, which

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 makes them more selective and demanding (Kantar 2019). Last but not

least, they are tech-savvy.

Behavioural

The target has middle to high social media usage. To name some of the

media platforms that they commonly used, it can be YouTube,

Facebook, and Instagram (Wearesocial 2020). Since this group favors

convenience, they quickly adopt new shopping patterns, such as online

shopping (Kantar 2019). They are frequent visitors to e-commerce sites

such as Tiki and Shopee. They are really open to share their

perspectives and leave reviews for a specific product or service. In

terms of category consumption, the target uses multiple beverage

brands including Coca Cola but they do not drink carbonated beverages

regularly, only in occasional parties or holiday celebrations.

g. DATA COLLECTION & ANALYSIS

To respond to the first research objective, two latest TVCs that

are “Kết Nối Nhà Nhà, Tết Thêm Rộn Rã” from Coca-Cola and “Pepsi

phiên bản mùa hè - Đổi màu khi ướp lạnh” from Pepsi Vietnam on

Youtube will be taken into content analysis. Netlytic will play the role in

examining brand associations rationally and emotionally by analyzing

the discussion board below each TVC on Youtube during the period

from November 2019 to July 2020.

To achieve the second objective, all reviews and comments on

Coca Cola after customers purchasing left on e-commerce platforms

including Tiki and Shopee from January 2020 to July 2020 (63

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 comments in total) will be collected by NCapture, then imported to

NVivo for sentiment analysis to scrutinize customer satisfaction.

h. FINDINGS

The level of brand association among the target audience during the period

of January 2020 to July 2020 by analyzing the discussion board on the two

latest TVCs from Coca Cola and Pepsi on Youtube.

Figure 1​. Text analysis from comments below the video “Kết Nối Nhà Nhà,

Tết Thêm Rộn Rã” of Coca-Cola on YouTube aired on 27 November 2019

(Reproduced from Netlytic 2020).

According to figure 1, emotional comments take up a larger proportion

compared to rational ones.

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Figure 2​. Coca Cola, most used keywords in the ‘Emotional” section

(Reproduced from Netlytic 2020).

Exploring further into the emotional angle, figure 2 demonstrates that

“tết", ”hay", ”vui", and “nôn" (new year, happy, exciting, meaningful) are

keywords with high frequency in the comment box. All of these vocabularies

expressed the positivity towards the brand.

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Figure 3​. Coca Cola, most used keywords in the “Rational” section

(Reproduced from Netlytic 2020).

Additionally, there are rational associations between customers and

Coca Cola such as “coca” “nước ngọt", ”ngon", “thèm", “giá" (coca, soft drink,

delicious, craving, price), visualized in figure 3. While “ngon”, “thèm”

(delicious, craving) indicates the positive association, terms including “coca”,

“nước ngọt” (coca, soft drink) are quite neutral, showing that Coca Cola’s

customers have associated the brand name with soft drink beverages.

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Figure 4​. Text analysis from comments below the video “Pepsi phiên bản

mùa hè - Đổi màu khi ướp lạnh” of Pepsi Vietnam on YouTube aired on 8

March 2020 (Reproduced from Netlytic 2020).

Regarding the competitor's side, interpretation from figure 4 is that

Pepsi Vietnam appears to share a similar pattern in customer associations.

Consumers are more likely to attach to Pepsi Vietnam emotionally rather than

functionally. However, the number of emotional comments is moderately

larger than rational ones.

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Figure 5​. Pepsi, most used terms in the “Emotional” section (Reproduced

from Netlytic 2020).

Scrutinizing how customers emotionally think of Pepsi, figure 5

indicates that the KOL - Sơn Tùng MTP featured in the TVC places first in

emotional association with the keyword of his name “Tùng". Falling behind is

how customers feel about the product - “ngon” (delicious). The name of Sơn

Tùng fandom - “sếp" (boss) is also commented here and there in Pepsi’s TVC.

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Figure 6. Pepsi, most used terms in the “Rational” section (Reproduced from

Netlytic 2020).

Customers rationally associated the brand with terms such as “ngon”,

“uống", “Pepsi" (delicious, drink, Pepsi). Notably, there is a minority of

consumers who have mistaken Pepsi with Coca as some of them mentioned

Coca in Pepsi’s TVC, visualized in figure 6.

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The level of satisfaction among the target audience through the analysis of

63 comments and reviews on e-commerce sites during the period of January

2020 to July 2020.

Figure 7​. Level of customer satisfaction towards Coca Cola on e-commerce

sites from January 2020 to July 2020 (Reproduced from NVivo 2020).

Figure 7 demonstrates that the majority of customers are content with

the Coca Cola brand.

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Figure 8​. Elements attributing to customers satisfaction towards Coca Cola

on e-commerce sites from January 2020 to July 2020 (Reproduced from

NVivo 2020).

To be more specifically, as can be seen from figure 8, among positive

reviews about the brand, promotions such as special gifts and discounts seem

to be the primary reason contributing to customer satisfaction. Furthermore,

customers highly appreciate the support from salesmen as this is the second

factor making them pleased. Lastly, diverse product flavours also receive

praise from customers.

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Figure 9​. Elements attributing to customers dissatisfaction towards Coca

Cola on e-commerce sites from January 2020 to July 2020 (Reproduced from

NVivo 2020).

On the other hand, customers mostly voice their complaints about

delivery. Many customers expressed their disapproval in delayed shipment

and overpriced shipping fee. Moreover, some deliveries were reported to have

caused goods damage. Besides, short expiration dates place second in reasons

failing to meet customers’ satisfactions, followed by low product quality and

unattractive packaging, visualized in figure 9.

i. DISCUSSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

The overall evaluation of the findings proved that in general customers

are holding positive perception towards Coca Cola. Particularly, the customer

perceptions are mainly emotion-driven. However, since Coca Cola main rival -

Pepsi Vietnam - has also obtained the similar brand perception, Coca Cola

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ought to put more effort in not only maintaining the current level of brand

perception but also elevating it to surpass Pepsi Vietnam.

Coca Cola could launch their branding campaigns during “Tết" (lunar

new year). This is such an appropriate occasion for communication activities

of Coca Cola Vietnam as the general public has widely associated Coca Cola

with this remarkable holiday. To further leverage brand perception, it is

recommended that Coca Cola Vietnam implement a celebrity-driven strategy.

Pepsi Vietnam has performed a good job in collaborating with Son Tung MTP

in their latest TVC. Therefore. influencers endorsement has been proved to

produce positive results in brand perception.

Besides, it is highly essential for Coca Cola to pay attention to

unfavorable comments left on e-commerce sites because word of mouth effect

from hostile reviewers can damage brand perception (Withanage, Nayak, R &

Nguyen, L 2019). As the majority of customers seem to be pleased with online

promotion activities, this can be taken advantage of by giving away promotion

codes on e-commerce sites to incentivize price-sensitive customers to buy

products (for instance, offering “FREE SHIP” code with any bills over 100.000

VND). Moreover, Coca Cola's strengths including diverse flavours and good

customer service can be selling points that they can highlight in upcoming

communication campaigns.

j. REFERENCE

Aaker, D 1991, ​Managing brand equity. Capitalizing on the value of a brand

name,​ Free Press, USA.

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Coca Cola 2020, ​History,​ Coca Cola, viewed 17 July 2020,

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Coca-Cola 2019, ​Kết Nối Nhà Nhà, Tết Thêm Rộn Rã, YouTube, 27

November, Coca-Cola, viewed 18 July 2020,

<​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y2kleWTysY&t=4s​>.

Cornwell, B, Pappu, R & Spry, A 2011 ‘Celebrity endorsement, brand

credibility and brand equity’, ​European Journal of Marketing​, vol.45, no.6,

pp.882-909.

Euromonitor 2019, ​Carbonates in Vietnam, ​company report, Kantar, viewed

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Foroudi, P, Jin, Z, Gupta, S, Foroudi, M.M & Kitchen, P.J 2018, "Perceptional

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viewed 16 July 2020,

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mpacted-vietnamese-consumers/​>.

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<​https://shopee.vn/cocacola_official_store​>.

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 ​ iki, viewed 17 July 2020
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<​https://tiki.vn/search?q=coca%20cola&_lc=Vk4wMzkwMTEwMDY=​>.

Tran, A 2018, ‘Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam outperformed its rival Coca-Cola,

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