Marketing a new snack in Vietnam.

Oishi: A kind of shrimp snack is made by  LiWayWay Corporation (Philipine). It it sold from VND 1,000 – 2,500/ packet.

Ruaypuan (imported brand): this prawn snack is very popular in Vietnam market due to tastily prawn flavour and low price (VND 2,500/ packet) . It is made by Friendship Company (a Thai company).

Pringles (imported brand): Procter and Gamble Company (U.S) is the maker of this product. Pringles is a very high quality potato crisp, and sold with high price (24,200 VND/ tube).

Figure 1: Vietnam snack market share in Mid-2008.

Source: The market newspaper 2008.

2.2 Macro Environment

2.2.1 Demographic:

Figure 2: Vietnam population by age group in 2005.

Source: Chris Morley 2007.

Vietnam population has been growing significantly until now with 85.1 millions (Population Reference Bureau 2008). Most of snack companies are targeting age groups from 5 – 24. As can be seen in the figure 2, these age groups are very high when comparing to others. Therefore, Vietnam market in general speaking and HCMC market in specific would be a potential and profitable market for Snack industry.

2.2.2 Economic Environment:

Figure 3: Income growth in HCMC and Hanoi by 2009.                   

Source: Chris Morley 2007.

The figure 3 illustrates that the income of HCM people will increase steadily by 2009. As a result, when consumers have more income, they will tend to spend more for normal goods like snack (Jackson & Mclver 2008, p. 78). In addition, along with rapid growth of Vietnamese economy in the recent years, GPD has almost doubled from 4.7 to 9 since 2002 (Index Mundi 2008). Therefore, the demand for Snack will increase more and more in the future.

2.2.3 Natural environment:

Natural factors such as water, soil or weather play a very important role in growing potatoes and wheat, so if there are some changes on one of them, it could effect to the productivity of the whole industry. In addition, each year Vietnam often face with many disasters such as storms or typhoons. Therefore, the whole industry has to be aware about the weather in Vietnam in order to avoid shortage of main raw material.  

2.2.4 Technology environment:

With the dramatic change of technological environment, it helps the whole industry a lot in non-stop creating new flavors such as chicken with lemongrass, Brazil BBQ pork rib, etc, and designing attractive packages. In addition, technology has been creating modern machines to produce snack that can keep fresh potato smell or longer expired day.

2.2.5 Political environment:

When Vietnam joints WTO, it also means that snack industry will be able to increase sales more because there will be more and more foreigners and experts coming to HCMC to do business and live. Additionally, in the first eight months of the year 2008, FDI into Vietnam increase doubly to US$47.15 billion comparing to last year US$20.3 billion (Ministry of Planning and Investment 2008). This number also means that Vietnam economy will continue sustainably developing in the future, so the industry will completely feel secure to invest and develop in Vietnam.

2.2.6 Cultural environment:

Besides two main meals a day, Vietnamese people usually have light meals to fulfill their hobby and stomach, so snack is one the best choices, especially with busy people. Moreover, Vietnamese also eat snack to entertain when hanging out, watching T.V or going to the cinema.

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1. S.W.O.T Analysis

                Strengths:

• High quality product with reasonable price.
• Self support the raw material.
• Pepsi Co is a big brand in Vietnam and International.
• Strong distribution channel.
• High invested capital.
• Has beautiful design and different size.
• High technology, machine and close procedure from Lays.
• Has different flavors for customers to choose (20 flavors)
• Many advertising.

                Weaknesses:

• The image of Poca fails to attract the most of customers.
• Do not have many flavors.
• Vietnamese people do not care much about Pepsi Co snack - Poca.
• PepsiCo does not professional in plant potatoes.

                Opportunities:

• The population of 13-22 year old has the highest population share in Vietnam population.
• 13-22 year-old customers tend to consume snack a lot.
• Vietnamese income and standard living increase gradually.
• Vietnam is a potential market with high purchasing power.
• Cost of labor is quite cheap.
• In November 2006, Vietnam joined WTO and Vietnamese economy grows stably.
• Communication boom in Vietnam especially Internet.

                Threats:

• Because Vietnam joined WTO, many foreign competitors will come to Vietnam in the future.
• The inflation leads to the increase of cost and reduces the buying demand.
• Price of petrol is increasing and that leads to the higher cost of transport.
• Most people think that snack is unhealthy food.
• Annual disasters can affect the supply of raw materials.

S.W.O.T Matrix

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2. Product Objectives

1. Corporation objectives

Poca is on the move of achieving the status of the most well-known and trusted brand name in producing potato snack, with the pioneer in closed process of manufacturing in Vietnam. To obtain the most efficiency, Poca has set up the following aims as criteria for running the business:

• Keep varying flavors, materials and provide consumers with a great many sorts of snacks to facilitate their choices
• Supply significantly increasing potato demands with the best products and the most satisfactory price, especially to the target market
• Guarantee the high quality with the ‘clean’ and ‘closed’ process, which is the first and the only in Vietnam
• Maintain good relationships with the long-term associates, i.e. consumers, suppliers and intermediaries.

( 2008)

2. Marketing Objectives

As Poca is the first snack brand belonging to PepsiCo launched to the market, it has to line out clear objectives for each progress steps:

• Apply successfully the societal marketing concepts, encourage the development of agriculture by the ‘close’ process
• Increase the popularity of Poca snack among teenagers by 20% at the end of 2008.
• Achieve 60% market share in potato snack market and 30% in snack market generally by the end of the financial year
• Maximize the sales by strengthen promotion and keep the sales growth at no less than 5% every quarter and 25 % each year

3. Financial Objectives

Being a new brand compared with others that have been existing for several years, having specific goals for finance is very essential to Poca:

• Increase the net profit before tax by 20% at the end of 2008

• Increase sales revenue by 20% at the end of 2008
• Keep the production costs at less than 20% of gross profit and decrease 5% of that by the end of next year to lower the price
• Invest in developing products
• Increase owners’ equity and avoid accounts payable

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3. Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

5.1 Market Segmentation

Geographic:

Poca widely supplies both rural and urban areas in Vietnam; main potential market is HCM city.

Demographic:

• Age: Poca snack can be consumed by all age groups who are interested in snacks. Nevertheless, as can be seen in the figure 2 (page 7) about the population in 2005, the age group of 13-22 has a high proportion in comparison with the others. Therefore, our target market is teenagers and young adults.
• Income: Poca snacks with appropriate prices aims to consumers with the low income of 1.000.000 VND upward. With a package of snack under 10 000 VND cannot be a big deal to any income levels.
• Family size: With different size of family, we offer different size of package: 50 gram, 60 gram.

Psychographic:

• Social class: Wide range of social class, low, medium and high income as well as different generations.
• Lifestyles: Based on the habit of young people, eating snacks when chatting, hanging out with friends or watching movies.

Behavioral:

• Occasions: watching football, movies, Tet holidays

Non occasions: anytime you want to enjoy snacks.

• Benefits: easy to find and buy, flexible, eat for fun, not much energy.
• User status: Once children like the flavors, they can be regular users for these kind of snacks.
• Attitude toward the product: could be negative (unhealthy, salty if regularly eating) or positive ( fun, easy to eat, use with other drinks)

5.2 Target Marketing

Mass marketing strategy:

Based on the common needs of customers, Poca aims to offer the whole market with products that attract a large numbers of consumers. Poca always tries to develop products that satisfied all the customers, especially teenagers and young adults.

5.3 Positioning

Competitive advantages:

Product Differentiation:

The flavors of Poca snacks are classic (salty and fresh potato and coconut taste) and classily imitated distinctive cuisines from Vietnam as well as from all over the world (Texas BBQ, chicken grilled with lemongrass). Poca provides not only a variety of flavors but also different styles of packaging and dainty eye-catching shape of snacks, which makes customers much more interested and satisfactory.

Channel Differentiation:

Poca snacks can be easily found in market, supermarket, canteen, grocery store. Wide range of channels built a higher market shares. Moreover, support delivery and promotion for large amount of quantity offered for retailers and physical distribution firms…

Image Differentiation:

Poca has simple but elegant designs with hot colours such as red, yellow and green – which are fresh and eye-catching. These draw more customers’ attention and create an exclusive image for Poca.

Overall Positioning Strategy:

Operating later than other competitors, Poca has adopted the “ More for the same” marketing concepts, which means with the same price as opposed to other competitors, consumers can receive much more higher quality products with different taste and flavors.

Positioning Statement:

Poca is the only brand name that will offer young adults and teenagers high quality, low calories and different flavors snacks with an affordable price.

 Positioning map:

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4. Marketing Mix Strategies

4. Product

Product Levels

Poca snack is pure tangible and convenient products, which are frequently purchased with nominal effort, low price, extensive distribution and mass promotion. There are three levels of Poca snack products:

1. Core benefit

Delicious tasting and leisure eating

2. Actual product

Based on the core benefit of Poca snack, PepsiCo Vietnam has been developing Poca’s brand name, packaging, design, quality and features to make the product satisfy our customers’ expectations.

• Brand: an absolutely new brand of snack developed by PepsiCo Vietnam. The brand is highly warranted by PepsiCo Global and developed based on the technique of Frito Lay – which has more than fifteen $100 million brands over 75 years of operating. Thus, Poca brand has promptly become recognizable to Vietnamese young - passion adults and teenagers.
• Design: hot colors such as red, yellow and green designs – which are fresh and eye-catching. Moreover, the package outside also illustrate the snack’s shape and flavor inside to ease the customer’s choice.
• Packaging: various packaging sizes from 18g to 38g which are expediential to carry everywhere.
• Quality: Poca snacks are produced under the license of Vietnam Ministry of Health. The products’ quality is controlled along Frito Lay’s standard and supervised by PepsiCo Global.
• Features:

• Flavor: various flavors to diversify the customers’ choices. The flavors of Poca snacks are classic (salty and fresh potato and coconut taste) and classily imitated distinctive cuisines from Vietnam as well as from all over the world (Texas BBQ, chicken grilled with lemongrass).
• Shapes of snack are typical yet fun and creative – classical round shaped for potato chips, triangles shaped for regular snack, or rod shaped for shrimp flavor)
• Fun to eat, to share and to party with friends.

3. Augmented product

• Delivery and credit: free delivery to distributors and wholesalers in contracts.  All official distributors and wholesalers can buy the product on credit under limited payment terms with no extra interest charge. All the payments can be made by cash or through bank transfer.
• Community forum is available for all customers to share their ideas, opinions and suggestions about the products and company as well as making new friends and parties’ ideas.
• Ingredients and nutrition facts are in the back of the packing to guarantee our customers’ health issues.
• Expired date is noticeably inserted on the top side of the package.

Product Improvements

• Hot line service contact information (includes 24/7 hot line telephone numbers) is printed in the back of the package for the customers to give complains and suggests.
• Intensify the natural nutrition such as anti-inflammatory, omega 3, aliphatic acid, and oleocanthal and minimize the unhealthy ingredients like cholesterol, animal fat, sodium and artificial substances (new technique from Diamant Art Corporation - Bio-Plastics Film Inc.)
• Changing the packing materials from plastics into Bio-Plastics packages – which automatically disintegrate into carbon dioxide, water, and biological substances under the natural condition.  
• Install the zipper on top of big size packages to close the package in case of not eating up. Therefore, the customers can save the snack left as well as maintain the quality and the aromatic flavor of the snack.

Brand Development        

In the potential Ho Chi Minh City market, Poca can implement Line extension strategy to develop its brand

• Bigger sizes are available for sharing in a group of friends, family packing or eating during movies.
• Increase more flavors for recent products. The company will give out the surveys among our target customers to determine the favorite flavors for the upcoming products. As Poca develops new competitive and unique flavors, it can compete with other famous competitors such as Kinh Do Barkery or Bibica.
• Changing the designs without changing its recognizable main features to make the looks fresh yet familiar to our customers.

5. Price

1. General pricing approach

        Competition-based pricing

In Vietnam, with the current high demand and consumption of potatoes, potato snack industry is considered a very competitive market in which many companies are trying to obtain the most of the market shares. Consequently, this pricing strategy must not be ignored. Before setting the price, Poca has to consider that of other big firms such as Oishi, Kinh Do, Toonies….under this industry of Oligopoly.

Consumers are very sensitive to the prices of products, and therefore consider carefully among wide range of brands to choose the most suitable one to purchase. As a result, when one firm increases or decreases its price, other firms will be very likely to follow the trend to compete. Poca does, too.

As Poca is a high quality product, competitors with which it is going to compare the price are Oishi or Pringles, which seem to go in the same direction in pricing. Actually, competition-based pricing is not only an effective but also economical strategy. Because Oishi and Pringles are large brands compared with Poca, so they have to share the same views in calculating to make profits as well as achieve market shares. This pricing strategy allows Poca to lower the costly market research to collecting data but still be able to follow goals. Moreover, this will helps Poca more flexible in setting price, due to the possible price adaptations to attract consumers. For instance, Pringles set the high price for its products due to its quality and tasty flavors. Poca will consider cutting some incurred cost and keeping the same quality as Pringles to set a lower price. Actually, Pringles sells at 12,000 VND for a small 43g tube, while Poca costs customers only 6,000 VND for a 50g bag (for more details, see Appendix). Consumers pay less and can still enjoy the same high quality snacks. This will increase the demand of Poca potato snack.

       New-product pricing strategies

                Market-penetration pricing

Unlike other competitors in high quality products who follow market-skimming pricing, Poca focuses on the other one, that is market-penetration pricing. Compared with others, Poca is still a young brand established in November 2005. Therefore, the very first thing that Poca should focus on is to obtain the most of the market shares in a very concentrated market. This is also one of the goals that Poca aims to accomplish during early years. With this strategy, Poca is still capable of competing with other firms despite comparatively low profits. Poca will set a low price to attract the most of customers and therefore have to control the cost strictly in order not to let expense exceed the price.

One of the strengths of this strategy is that it allows the company to be capable of competing with other firms more effectively in spite of low cost. Although Oishi or Pringles set high price for their snacks, they only produce limited amounts while Poca can do that in mass production. Moreover, the fact that Poca is sold at low price is not resulted from the cut down of quality but from that of other expenses. Thus, consumers can still enjoy high quality snacks with a lower price. For example, Pringles is sold at 24,200 VND each tube while Poca is sold at 6,000 VND each, which is still lower than Oishi. However, Poca potato snack is still currently receiving a great many positive supports from consumers.

Furthermore, this direction of Poca in pricing is going to be followed by other advantages:

• Firstly, the low price will help Poca to strengthen the brand loyalty due to the large number of consumers it is going to appeal.
• Secondly, this is a pretty safe strategy to follow with a young brand like Poca due to low cost of production incurred, because the company cannot predict whether the brand is able to survive the competitive industry or not.
• Finally, this strategy is totally suitable for our target market that has been identified at the beginning - teenagers. With a low reasonable price, teenagers can definitely afford for one pack.

3. Product mix pricing

1. Product-line pricing

As Poca is trying to make its products variable with flavors, tastes as well as package sizes, this strategy is certainly the one to follow. Poca now has many different flavors, features and prices. The company currently offers prices varying from 1,000 VND to 6,000 VND for a bag whose size varies from 10g to 60g. This widens consumers’ range of choices and facilitates their decisions when buying. Therefore, this strategy will help Poca brand more appealing to customers and consequently maximize the profits.

2. Product-bundle pricing

Due to the fact that potato consumption is higher than ever as a substitute for fresh potatoes, the demand for potato snack is quite greater than that of other flavors. As a result, it is preferred to be consumed in big packages on occasions of going camping or traveling. Poca is currently sold in big package of 24 small bags of 27g. The price is lower; that is, customers only spend 92,000 VND for a package instead of 96,000 VND when they buy 24 single bags. Therefore, the same as product-line pricing, the strategy helps consumers more easily make their choices and save their money, as well as maximize the profits of the company.

5.       Price-adjustment

a.        Discount and allowance pricing

Similar to product-bundle pricing, Poca offers big packages with reduced price, which helps consumers to save their money rather than buy single bags. Because this is only a trial strategy with the company to collect consumers’ feelings about packaging selling, Poca is only sold in a big-size package of 24 bags. (A package of 24 27g bags = 92,000 VND; 24 single 27g bags = 96,000).

3. Promotional pricing

The company sometimes holds parties or concerts with the performance of the brand’s representatives - famous stars, together with which discount programs will be given away, to attract more consumers. Poca has held a friendly meeting with the previous representative – My Tam with her fans. In the meeting, attendants were served with free Poca snacks and offered discount cards allowing them to buy with a lower price for certain amounts.  This event has been supported by many people. In the short-run, the company will open a similar concert with the performance of the current representatives – Pham Quynh Anh and WeBoys. Moreover, on occasions like summer or Tet holidays, to increase the sales in short-run, Poca often gives discount for the wholesalers, retailers and consumers buying large amounts. For instance, Poca sells products at 5,000 VND for each 50g potato snack bag, and 90,000 VND for a package of 24 small bags on these occasions.

6. Place

• Conventional Marketing Channel        

Poca

Wholesalers 

Retailers

Consumers

Poca

Metro

Supermarket

School, cinema, etc.

Customers

Poca uses the Corporate Vertical Marketing Channel to distribute products because it is quite easy to build and familiar with customers especially in Vietnam – a developing country. In the first step, Poca distributes products to Metro – the main wholesaler. Metro stores many Poca products in big packages because the company wants to satisfy the buying behavior of high class customers who usually want to buy and store a large amount of products to use at home.  Moreover, the company distributes the products to the retailers. Poca divides the retailers into two segments: Supermarket and grocery; school and some entertainment centers. Poca targets mainly in some big supermarkets such as Coopmart, BigC, Maximart and Citimart and grocery stores as well.  With supermarkets and grocery stores which locate in every ward of Vietnam, the products can be easily consumed by low and medium class customers.

Furthermore, knowing the buying behaviors of 13-22 year old customers (target market), Poca focuses on not only secondary and high schools where there are many pupils who consume snack mainly but also entertainment centers: cinema – Diamond Plaza, theater- Central Theater and stadium- My Dinh stadium. In those places, there are a huge amount of teenagers usually arrive and consume snack a lot.

• Intensive Distribution

The company’s desire is to reach the reputation with which everybody could find Poca products in any corners of Vietnam. With the strong distributions from Pepsi Co, Poca easily distributes the products to any places where there are potential consumers. Snack is a convenient product so that the customers do not want to go so far just only to purchase a package of snacks. Thus, intensive distribution can satisfy the customer need and solves that problem. Finally, this strategy can strengthen consumers’ awareness, loyalty and create a nationwide recognition for Poca.

7. Promotion

Poca primarily uses pull strategy associating with push strategy to improve customers’ awareness as well as increase its current market share.

1. Push Promotion Strategy

Personal Selling

Sales Promotion

Advertising/

Trade promotion

Poca reinforces the product supply in its distribution channel in order to increase the product approachability to the customers.  By offering a special discount for its wholesalers and retailers, Poca can push up its sales volume and current consumption through its distributors. The discount value can be varied depending on the quantity of purchasing:

• 5% discount on total payment for 20 cartons purchase.
• 7% discount on total payment for 50 cartons purchase.
• 10% discount on total payment for 100 cartons purchase.
• Further discount can be offered for special order.

*1 carton contain 24 packages

2. Pull Promotion Strategy

Demand

Demand

Consumer advertising/ Sales promotion

Besides pushing more products to the market, pull promotion strategy is applying for Poca to get the customers’ awareness, and consequently create further demand for the products. Through mass media advertising, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing, Poca create its own image, brand name as well as introduce its new products directly to the end consumers.

1. Advertising

Poca invites famous teenager singer and music band to represent for the products. The company uses endorsement approach to promote the image of young and active people having fun eating Poca with their idols. The advertising also endorses the delicious taste of Poca through the slogan “Too yummy to resist” said by everybody.

Poca focuses on those following advertising means:

• Television - broadcasting the advertisements in particular break time between teenagers’ and musical program such as “Happy musical note” or “Yeah1! Fashion” shows in Ho Chi Minh City official channels HTV7 and HTV9 and other teenagers’ channels like Yeah1!TV and FunTV

• Radio - broadcasting the musical advertising for Poca through funny Poca song and others top hits of Poca’s representative singers -  Pham Quynh Anh and Weboys in the time of 6.00 P.M to 9.30 P.M

• Magazine - putting the color advertisement of Poca (or other special events and special promotions information) in famous and reliable youth magazines like H2H, Muc Tim magazine and Yeah1! Magazines.

• Outdoor - the outdoor advertising will be applied along with the upcoming special events only. The outdoor advertisement means such as fliers, bands and Poca effigies will be displayed around the areas of special events only.

 

• Internet -  as internet is a speedy and the cheapest communication means of teenagers and young adults these days, Poca will focus on developing the cyber advertising in two ways:

• As Poca has its own website and create its own “cyber-hood” through Poca forum, it is essential to keep investing and updating the forum information, entertaining and members’ benefits.
• To increase the popularity of Poca products and its website, Poca will put animated advertising on other entertaining and teenagers’ websites such as Yeah1.com, hihihehe.com and zing.vn

• Sponsor – Poca will be the main sponsor for the Campus Tour Concerts of our representative singers – Pham Quynh Anh and WeBoys. The Campus Tour Concerts will be hold for students in different universities in HCMC with a very cheap price ticket.

        

2. Sales Promotion

• Sample – Poca will give out free sample every two months for the new customers have the change to try and enjoy the delicious taste of Poca. Moreover, when there are new flavors produced, we will also give free sample for the customers to try new flavors. There sample will be give out free in places which are highly dense of teenagers and young adults – such as big supermarket (Maximart, Co-op Mart, City Mart and Big C), food court in bid department stores (Diamonds Plaza, Parkson Plaza etc.) and entertainment places (MegaStar Movie, Dam Sen Theme Park, Lan Anh Stage etc.)

• Patronage Rewards – by buy a package of Poca, the customers will receive particular points (depending on the sizes of packages) and submit the serial score via Poca website. As the customers meet the points for rewards, they will receive various gifts such as free posters or concert tickets of their favorite singers or even up to a free Nano IPods.

• Games – in each Poca Potato packages, there is a small badge of Mr. Potato for our customers to decorate their clothes and accessories.

a

Mr. Potato badge

3. Public Relations

As building public relations have more impacts on the customers’ awareess at lower cost than advertising, Poca will hold various events to deliver the image of Poca to the society as well as to achieve the customer sympathy for the products. These events below will be held within the next twelve months:

• News – To announce the company new achievement in developing an environment-friendly package for Poca snacks. It promotes a friendly and familiar image of Poca to our consumers as well as encourages the supports from Vietnam government and social organization. Poca will select famous and highly reliable newspapers (such as Tuoi Tre, Thanh Nien daily newspaper) to publish the company’s news.
• Special events – “Poca Party” – the event will be hold for the Poca consumers to have a change to meet their favorite singers and sing along with them. Moreover, all the participators will enjoy the taste of Poca for free together with their idols with the slogan “Too yummy to resist”. With the appearance of teenagers idols (Pham Quynh Anh and Weboys), Poca’ images will be enlarged and have a great influence on consumers’ eyes.

• Public service activities – Charity Customary –Poca will hold charity events regularly in Tet holiday, Children Day, and other national holidays. Poca and its representative singers will set warming-kind examples for a young generation not only having fun but also having compassionate consciousness. Poca comprehend that education is not a job of school and family only, but a job of the entire society.

• Websites - This can be a good public relations vehicle. The website address of Poca is:  , where consumers can visit the site for products information, contacts and entertainment as well.

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5. Action Program

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6. Control Program

The marketing plan for Poca potato snack will be processed from September 2008 to August 2009. The control program is very essential as one of the key factors to the success of the company. It is the duty of all departments to be charged of all the activities carried out by the company. This is to ensure not only everything to be conformed to the action plans but also key performance indicators are seriously followed:

Benchmark evaluation procedures:

• Sales volume: these numbers will show whether the marketing strategies are effective or not, that is, advertising and promotion. This is easy for the company to assess the efficiency in marketing, in order to decide on continuing following the trend if it is positive or change it if vice versa. On other words, the figure of sales volume enables Poca to adapt to the environment.
• Sales revenue and profit: Poca is going to check the curve of sales revenue and profit to make sure that the company develops after every month, quarter and financial year and marketing strategies are well-carried out. Besides, Poca will calculate net profit margin, ROA and other ratios that have to do with the sale performance to determine if the company generates profits.
• Market share: As the most important goal of Poca is to obtain the most the market shares in the industry, market share is very crucial as an indicator for the company’s excellent performance. Poca is going to check whether it has reached 30% of the potato snack market and 60% of the snack market generally. This reflects the practicality not only of the marketing plan but also of the corporation objectives.

Customers’ feedback: to all producers, customers are considered a very essential and influential source to maintain the business of firms. Understanding their importance role, Poca concentrates on consumers’ attitudes and feedbacks. To make sure Poca snack is up to expectations, the company always encourages customers to give feedbacks, both on the official website and on the kiosks when Poca provides free trial for new flavors. The more satisfaction with the products’ tastes Poca gains, the more customers the company attracts to generate profits. This plays an important role of building the consumers’ loyalty which is vital to a comparatively new brand name like Poca.

Budgets: financial status is important because the very first aim of Poca is to make profits. If all the strategies are done well, the company’s budgets will significantly increase so as to allow Poca to carry out other promotions. As mentioned above in pricing strategies, Poca has a quite high producing cost. However, the company has a high initial capital and efficient marketing plans, which make all incurred cost affordable. The budgets are under control of finance department. Thus, the marketing department has to run in close connection with finance department to utilize the most of company’s budgets.

7. Reference List

• Christ, M 2007, Your Consumers from Head to Toe, course readings from MKTG1205, RMIT University, Vietnam, viewed 25 August 2008, RMIT University Black Board.

<http://bb-sgvn.rmit.edu.vn/courses/1/MKTG1205/content/_67654_1/YourConsumerfromHeadtoToe.pdf>.

• Indexmundi, 2008, Vietnam – GDP – real growth rate (%), Indexmundi, viewed 29 August 2008,

< >.

• Jackson, J & Mclver, R 2005, microeconomics, 7th edn, Mc Graw Hill, New York.

• Khai, NH 2008, ‘Thi truong snack cua Viet Nam’, The Market Newspaper, 15 May, p.9.

• Poca snack, 2008, Poca snack,  viewed 01 September 2008, <http://www.poca.com.vn/>.

• Population Reference Bureau, 2008, Demographic & Health Highlights, Population Reference Bureau, viewed 29 August 2008,

< >.

• Vietnam Ministry of planning and investment, 2008, FDI in 2007 and 2008, Vietnam Ministry of planning and investment, viewed 28 August 2008, < >.

• Vinpas, 2008, viewed 3 September 2008,

<>.

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8. Appendices

Appendix 1: Poca history

In 2005

• In November 2005, Poca was established after doing a lot of deep researching about snack market and Vietnamese taste of PepsiCo.

In 2006

• In Dec 2006, PepsiCo Vietnam expand widely Poca snack into HCM and Hanoi market by producing new and strange flavors that are suitable with Vietnamese taste and designing attractive package.

In 2007

• Poca snack is sold with various package size:    

• Poca Shots 10g
• Poca 25g
• Poca 50g
• Poca 60g
• Poca coconut “Nutz” 30g

In 2008 there were many innovative changes for Poca.

In March 2008 - Poca changed logo and all package design.

Introduced to the market two new premiums - flavor snacks:  “Roasted chicken with lime leaf and five spices roasted cuttlefish

In May 2008 - Poca introduced Poca premium potato snacks that are produced from fresh and best potato planted in Lam Dong Province and combined with PepsiCo’ 75 year – experience in producing potato snack.

These are some Poca’s products.