Marketing maverick offers key to real estate

Amy Wee - vice president of the Singapore Business Association in Vietnam (SBAV) and director of Branding and Marketing at CENGROUP

As an international branding expert, you have a lot of professional experience in brand development and building marketing strategies for different brands in all kinds of business sectors. Could you share some of your working experiences or your own marketing stories?

Branding is the soul of a business where the company is a reflection of each and every one of us who represent the thoughts, the actions, and values to the market. Hence, branding goes far beyond just creating a name: it is how the company is known in the heart of the market.

I have been doing marketing for 25 years across the region, with the majority of years in Vietnam and Singapore. I spent a year in New York studying the market for advertising and merchandising and comparing the nuances of the work in America and Asia. I realised then that the characteristics of branding across the globe are different, yet the same. What I mean is everyone wants to present the best branding exercise to the target market but due to each market’s complexity and unique demand, companies have to deliver the branding packages to the market in whichever way suits best. At the end of each branding journey, a company should have inched closer to the target market, closing in on achieving its business objectives.

I started in Vietnam in the last quarter of 2007. I was invited by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) to be a trainer in the development of upper trade for the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. And since then one thing lead to another and I found myself as a consultant for FIVIMART, delivering know-how on making the products and merchandising system a pull-factor to achieving bigger market share. After FIVIMART, I joined HAPRO as a marketing director, where my role was to direct the strategic growth of subsidiaries to achieve market recognition. I was also the brand consultant for one of Vietnam’s leading leather product manufacturers and retailers, here I changed the brand name to GURKHA and marketed the quality products with distinctive classic European design across retail shops in key shopping malls and through the website for the international markets.

A branding success can only happen if the head of a business believes in and supports change. A business will lose its lustre if it stops moving along by means of customer demand and understanding its own and competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and weaknesses.

What are your views on real estate marketing in Vietnam today?

Real estate is the fastest growing industry in Vietnam—no wonder that so many industry big-wigs are flocking to take a dip in this pool of gold. Players ranging from big local banks and retailers to big construction companies are now trying their hands at developing residential and commercial buildings This dynamism naturally makes well-located land areas scarce, as new development towns are quickly raised to make every inch of land worthy of residential and commercial construction. With such market progression, competition naturally becomes intense. The entry of a large number of foreign developers sharing the grounds with local developers has significantly altered the scene, as well: with foreign developers having brand names known worldwide and local developers having extremely strong connections with the right people in the market, differentiating products became mandatory and building brand evangelists became a competitive stature!

And of course as I always preach: make your product visibly and acceptably different at a price that customers see worthy.

Vietnamese people generally buy property by word-of-mouth, where trust is highly regarded. Above-the-line marketing only creates publicity but real buyers count a lot on personalised services. The real voice to the market is the people that developers partner with to sell their properties. It is also these people that will advise developers on the value of their properties and how they will be promoted.

Regarding customers, what insights could you offer on the differences in the purchasing behaviour between real estate buyers and normal buyers?

First, properties involve a higher stake of investment then most things that money can buy. It is typical that a higher-stake purchase would require much consideration before making the decision whether to buy. The opportunity cost is always higher for real estate, especially in developing markets. Vietnam has progressively made investments in real estates easier through softening laws and regulations in order to elevate the economy to a stronger platform.

Vietnam’s infrastructure has improved tremendously over the last 10 years and slowly but surely the Vietnamese government builds amenities in every estate to create convenience for the people, and lands with good amenities and road infrastructure are fetching good returns on investments. However, because many lands now have good amenities, potential investors are faced with overwhelming choice and hence a stiffer competition between the many developments that are currently available for sale. In this regard, personalised services are important to investors and if they are offered a full service ( from home buying through bank loans to furnishing, etc.) you can count on closing the deal rather successfully.

How do you advise real estate marketing and sales executives to attract more potential customers and maintain a good image for their corporate brand in general and their products and services in particular?

The best advice I can give to any marketer is to predict the future! The future that you predict plus the burning desire to achieve it will lead you to recognition, trust, and respect. The bottom line is, make your customer your friend! If a customer becomes your friend, his voice can be louder than a million-dollar advertising campaign on whatever you are selling. And if you make every customer your friend, and make their friends your new friends, your worth as a sales/marketing executive multiplies manyfold.

But to start being successful, you need to want to be successful. When you have the ambition to succeed, then you will have the desire to gain knowledge of the products you are selling, to be informed of the market you are involved in, to know what your competitors are up to, to always listen to what your customers want and to deliver your promises without fail, and understand and accept rejection. Always remember this, you are a crucial part of what your company’s brand is made of: one critical mistake and your company’s brand can be history!

Developers sell houses. Sales and marketing people sell dreams.

Why did you choose CENGROUP from the many large businesses in Vietnam courting you?

I do not choose the company I want to work for, I choose the people/colleagues I want to work with! A dragon’s body moves in the right direction because the head goes the right direction. The bosses I report to (the chairman and the vice chairman) believe in cultivating a business culture where our people are emotionally invested and want to contribute because they are happy. It is because we grow our love and respect for friends from within (the organisation) that we radiate out the same emotions to care and respect for our customers. For developers who are our business partners, we offer advice on how they can differentiate their products a.k.a. their selling characteristics and the pricing strategy.

I am into my 5th month in CENGROUP and I am certainly appreciating every opportunity to be a part of this joyful organisation. The trust and friendship I earned from business partners make my workdays in this industry a blessing.

Could you shed the light on the brand and marketing development strategy for CENGROUP in the upcoming time?

“People” has always been CENGROUP’s business. And by listening to our customers’ requirements, I see the need for CENGROUP to add more items to the basket of services that we are already offering: furnishings (CEN PLUS), CENVALUE (land and house valuation), CENINVEST (developing residential projects), STDA (CENGROUP’s sales arm, also the largest sales agency in Vietnam) etc.

I am also devising a “People Developer” programme where our staff is constantly given soft skills and knowledge-based training, awarding our staff with certificates of achievements at each milestone of their progress.

The strategy is never about trying to be number 1 on the market but to create a strong reputation as a respected and trusted real estate services provider with a basket full of services that can benef customers and CENGROUP mutually. Through these small steps we take each and every time we treat with customers, we know that we will edge ourselves to be number 1, naturally. As the saying goes “Rome was not built in a day.”

I would like to end off this interview by saying this: Market yourself well, before you market anything else. Success comes from your own confidence.