In economic crisis, businesses change their ad strategies Readers have got tired of ad pieces on print papers, while TV watchers would switch to other channels when they see ads. With 28 million users, the Internet has become a new potential ad channel. The participants at the workshop discussing the tendency in the communication and advertisement industries in Vietnam all agreed that advertising on the Internet would become the second post popular choice for enterprises, after TV, while the rankings would continue changing. Do Kim Dung, Deputy Chair of the Vietnam Advertisement Association, said the years 2012 and 2013 witnessed the sharp downturn in the print ads all over the world and in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Internet ads have been growing very strongly over the last 2 years. In 2010, Vietnam reportedly got the turnover of $25 million from the online ad market, which was equal to 3.7 percent of the total ad budget. The figures are believed to increase to $114 million in 2013. However, Dung said that the market share held by Internet ads remain… immeasurable, while the proportion is 19-20 percent in the world. “I believe that the Internet still cannot outstrip print newspapers as an ad channel. However, Vietnam would have to follow the global tendency, sooner or later,” Dung said. “It’s obvious that young people are the biggest consumers, while they are the biggest Internet users,” he added. Ad firms complained that the ad turnover decreased dramatically in 2012, since businesses all tended to cut down the budgets for ad campaigns. Phan Le Khoi, Vice President of IB Group, noted that businesses nowadays tend to think twice when budgeting ad programs. In general, they run comprehensive marketing campaigns to promote some kinds of products, while ads are just a part of the campaigns. Khoi went on to say that there are many different ways for businesses to access customers instead of spending big money on ads. There are many instruments and channels for businesses to introduce their products to consumers, while the costs are very “reasonable,” such as social network websites like Facebook or Zing. Vietnamese ad firms have also complained that they have to compete fiercely with foreign ad firms, even though the foreign firms bear some restrictions in doing business in Vietnam. Why can foreign firms win the competition? According to Khoi, the key lies in the way of thinking. While Vietnamese ad firms simply carry out ad programs, foreign firms think about the strategies. The weak point of Vietnamese ad firms is that they don’t focus on the creativeness, while they simply fulfill the ideas and programs ordered by clients. Market survey firms said the global ad turnover in 2012 grew by 4.7 percent, while the figure was 1.2 percent in Asia Pacific. Meanwhile, a report of UNDP provided for the presentation about the ad law in January 2012 showed the market shares of the ad channels as follows: TV 41 percent, Internet 16 percent, outdoors ads 11 percent, journals 5 percent, newspapers 23 percent and radio 4 percent. The figures in Vietnam were as follows: TV 78 percent, newspapers 11 percent, journal 7 percent, outdoors 4 percent, Internet 0 percent and movie 0 percent (0 percent means inconsiderable). Predicting about the growth rate of the ad industry, Khoi of IB Group said the figure could be 13 percent in the world, and no less than 6 percent in Vietnam in 2013. DDDN