business communication the analysis of vua nems business communication

TABLE OF PICTURES Picture 1: A series of sensitive images posted by Vua Nem on Valentine's Day...5 Picture 2: Analysis of Vua Nem's images 7 Picture 3: Negative comments from customers

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BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

THE ANALYSIS OF VUA NEM’S BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

11219364 Phạm Đức Nam

Hanoi, May 2023

TABLE OF CONTENT

A INTRODUCTION .ssesssesssessssecsecsssseasecsseceasecanecesccsaneeaseceaneanecaseacenseeseeaseansenee

B STUDY CASES sccssecsssssssessseccsnecanecencceanecaseccanseaneceseceanecaneceacceanecaneccanceaveeaneanees

L The advertisement of Vua Nệm for Valentine Day (14/2/2023)

Description of situation

Reasons

Consequence

II The advertisement of Vua Ném in Cat Linh train station (10/12/2021)

Description of situation Reasons

_— 2

_— 2

_ _

_— we Suggestion

C GROUP OPINION

D CONCLUSION

E REFERENCE

_— +

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TABLE OF PICTURES

Picture 1: A series of sensitive images posted by Vua Nem on Valentine's Day 5

Picture 2: Analysis of Vua Nem's images 7

Picture 3: Negative comments from customers on Facebook os« «<< «se 8

Picture 4: Vua Nem corrected its mistake by replacing a new post in Valentine's

Picture 5: Pictures of groups of half-nude men advertismg Vua Nem's products

10 Picture 6: An irrelevant apology of Vua Nem, not relates to the purpose of

Picture 8: The government punished Vua Nem for offensive advertisement in Cat

Picture 9: The apology of Vua Nem after advertising in Cat Linh station 14

A INTRODUCTION The company was founded in 2007 as Dem.vn, but the owners later launched

Vuanem.com to serve customers in the southern provinces as well Vua Nem is a

mattress and bedding retail system with 155+ showrooms across the country in 30

cities They began as a small shop on Hanoi's Xa Dan Street and have since grown to

become a national industry leader Me Kong invested in Dem.vn in 2018 The brands

Dem.vn and Vuanem.vn were combined into one brand, named Vua Nem, in response

to the investment, and a new logo and visual identity were unveiled

B STUDY CASES

I The advertisement of Vua Nệm for Valentine Day (14/2/2023)

1 Description of situation

On Tuesday - 14/02/2023, Vua Nem launched a series of sensitive content in order to

advertise its products on Valentine’s Day Particularly, Vua Nem has posted several

images of topless men, who posed sexily on its mattress products In addition, they

also used touchy words such as “nung” ,”xoa’”, “be”, “chiéu’” with personal names

such as “Ha”, “Hoa", “Phuong", “Yén",

vuanén i

Picture 1; A series of sensitive images posted by Vua Nem on Valentine's Day

Notably, the slogan in the first picture of this advertisement is also extremely

offensive, especially to Vietnamese people It can be evident that the slogan “Ném la

dé yéu” was blurred half of the letter “m’”, making sentence becomes “Nén la dé yéu”, which means having sex is to show more love

5

2 Reasons

In modern day, advertising becomes an essential part of any product in every industry Advertising is compared to a means conveyed through social media such as Facebook, Instagram , Tiktok, to bring a new product to the public, especially in the era of

developing technology However, with the thought of underestimating the influence of social media, many companies and corporations have to receive a lot of negative

feedback as they make mistakes in using words or even pictures Vua Nem also fell

into the same situation when they tried to introduce their products to customers

through Facebook Hence, our team choose this case to emphasize following things:

a Business communication has a big impact on reaction of a country's fine custom

A country's fine customs is a way of behaving or a belief that has been established for

a long time, which is preserved and passed on to the next generations to ensure

national identity Thus, organizations and companies need to approach carefully when its products have effects on a country's fine customs Only one mistake related to

annoying people's fine customs is enough to lose prestige and be heavily criticized

b Offensive language effects conveying the message Choosing the right words to convey messages is an essential aspect of effective

business communication The words we use can have a significant impact on how

your message is received by your audience as it can affect the clarity, professionalism, tone, and persuasiveness of our message Companies and corporations should be more careful when considering the language used can help achieve communication goals

and build stronger and professional relationships with the customers

3 Analysis

(aq) Yua Nem ©

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VALENTINE EM Al CUA Al THI VAO NHAN NE

The letter

“m” was Call direct blurred half

Rude and

impolite

language

Picture 2: Analysis of Vua Nem's images The contents of this advertising campaign is sexualizing love and men Images of half naked male models posing on mattresses can imply that the brand is referring to sex,

and consider men as a symbol of it Nevertheless, they seem to think that because

Valentine is a day of love, people will definitely "make love" on that day This makes Vietnamese feel obscene and vulgar when they find the advertisement of Vua Nem on Facebook As Vietnam is a high context culture, its people use indirect and digressive communication, use of few words, reliance on contextual cues, waiting politely until

the other person has stopped speaking before taking turns and avoid discussing

sensitive topics in public

Additionally, Vua Nem also uses rude and impolite languages to advertise the

products, which leads to annoying customers The way Vua Nem calls a direct

personal name makes the person have the same being teased under the comment post Moreover, they use inappropriate words such as “ xoa”, “ nung”, “ nén” , which 1s easily reminiscent of sexual harassment statements in real life This method also can make customers misunderstand that Vua Nem wants to encourage sexual harassment

Finally, it seems Vua Nem has targeted the wrong customers, which violates the

different frames of reference, which is formed by a combination of experiences,

education, culture, expectations, personality, and many other elements As the post is

to probably target the youth However, the client file of mattresses are mainly mature

people, who have economic capacity and the potential to buy houses and furniture

These people will not like this type of content, they could consider this post as “dirty” content, and they might not want to come to Vua Nem to buy a mattress anymore due

to the sensitive advertising campaign

We can see that Vua Nem wants to use social media - Facebook to increase its

influence to potential customers, but it does not pay attention to developing a civilized community

4 Consequence

In the marketing aspect, Vua Nem’s campaign was pretty successful when the

advertisement became viral However, most consumers claimed that the images and

the language of the post is too offensive The brand had to receive negative comments and feedback

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Quảng cáo chê nhai Thích Phảnhồi 40 phút Picture 3: Negative comments from customers on Facebook Although the post was deleted or hidden in the fanpage Vua Nem, it still remained and 1s often recalled by Facebook users Since the advertisement campaign will stay on

Facebook, this eventually damages the reputation as well as the image of Vua Nem

8

Currently, Vua Nem has replaced a more positive and healthy content with lower

reaction

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Picture 4: Vua Nem corrected its mistake by replacing a new post in Valentine's

Day

5 Suggestion From the situation of Vua Nem, our group learns several lessons Firstly, before

making a campaign advertisement to audiences, a firm or an organization need to

ensure that the language and pictures are bias-free and non-erotic language, especially they should not sexualize any genders in order to introduce their products

Secondly, organizations need to be cautious when they decide to post on social media

to introduce their products as the post will stay forever on the Internet

Finally, we need to analyze carefully our customer persona as well as their cultures

before performing any kind of advertisement

We believe that any organization should take Vua Nem as an example of ineffective

communication, which leads to delivering annoying messages to customers and

making them feel offended

II The advertisement of Vua Ném in Cat Linh train station (10/12/2021)

1 Description of situation

On December 10th 2021, Vua Nem launched a marketing campaign by having a group

of young men showing off their topless bodies on the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway, and

9

in many other places They wore Santa Claus costumes without tying buttons in public while holding advertising banners for Vua Nem Later on, the images of those were

spread widely on social media, especially Facebook

Picture 5: Pictures of groups of half-nude men advertising Vua Nem's products

2, Reasons Brand marketing has always been a significant concern of many businesses In order

to be viral, some companies can do whatever it takes, even a controversial way

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Obviously, this way helps bring those brands to consumers easier., but sometimes it

10

can backfire on them In this case, Vuanem, despite being a huge entrepreneur, made

some communicating mistakes during their marketing campaign As a business

communication case study, it is important to point out those mistakes and analyze

them After all, our group want to make the lessons below clear:

a Forms of marketing has a enormous influence in different cultures

Different countries have different cultures, and different cultures have different

standards to follow As we stated before, Vietnam has a high-context culture, and it is important for companies to pay attention to nonverbal expressions, interpersonal

relationships and social settings

b Suitable images can deliver the meaning of messages of products Each product has its own meaning, and the messages of it to consumers should be

appropriate Vuanem assigns a disturbing message to their products, which makes

customers misunderstand the meaning of those

3 Analysis The second situation also contains male sexualization issues as the previous one The

difference here is that in this case, the disturbance exists not only on Facebook but

also in real society In Vietnam, in high-context culture, those images are not suitable The action of showing the top part of the body in public is considered outrageous in

Vietnames’s tradition Although Vietnamese people usually avoid discussing sensitive contents directly, they still notice and judge negatively about them

Secondly, this marketing campaign contains wrongful messages of products

Audiences would mainly notice the model instead of what they were advertising

In addition, Vua Nem did not apply the Five Rs To be more specific, the apology of

the representative of Vua Nem mentions an irrelevant and difficult to understand

message about a “healthy” lifestyle They did not take responsibility but made up an

11

excuse unrelated to the content appearing at the time of advertising They also did not follow the Restitution and the Repeating that in their apology, they didn't give specific information about future actions and the fact that case | 1s a proof to the continued

repetition of Vua Nem’s junk content mistake

“Hoạt động quảng cáo này nhằm khơi nguồn cảm hứng cho lối sống “healthy” Chúng tôi chỉ

mong muốn lan tỏa thông điệp về ý chí kiên cường, khuyến khích rèn luyện thể chất để có một

cuộc sống khỏe mạnh, tích cực hơn, đây cũng là một phần trong chiến lược tổng thể của Vua

Nệm về nâng cao sức khỏe cộng đồng” vị đại diện Vua Nệm thông tin

Picture 6; An irrelevant apology of Vua Nem, not relates to the purpose of

marketing products

* Written apologies are more formal than spoken but work about the same

© By communicating effectively over the long term, businesses gain the trust

of employees, the public, as well as the media and are therefore better equipped to weather crises successfully

Picture 7: The Five Rs

4 Consequence The act of using male sexualized content can result in many consequences

Firstly, it can bring up reinforcement of harmful gender stereotypes, such as

masculinity, dominance, sexual promiscuity

Secondly, the reputation of Vuanem will also be damaged The offensive contents are

not difficult to spread And normally people will react badly to them This can easily

be seen in the comment session of the Vua Nem fanpage

12

Thirdly, the company may face legal issues Vuanem was charged for 137 million

VND for those disturbing contents

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Xử phạt Vua Nệm 137 triệu đồng sau vụ quảng cáo trên tàu Cát Linh

Sở Văn hóa Thể thao Hà Nội cho rằng doanh nghiệp Vua Nệm có hành vi Đọc tiếp quảng cáo trái thuần phong mỹ tục, ảnh hưởng mỹ quan đô thị, không xin | Bí thư Hà Nội yêu cầu

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phép cơ quan chức năng tá: dịp Giảng sinh Trao đổi với Zing sáng 21/12, ông Đặng Đức Hưng, Chánh thanh tra Sở Văn hóa

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Thế thao Hà Nội, cho biết đã có quyết định xử phạt vụ nhóm người cởi trần T- ep aie cin re ava

quảng cáo nhãn hàng trên tàu điện Cát Linh - Hà Đông ee 5 Nội

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Pe Qua xác minh, đơn vị thực hiện hành vi quảng cáo này là Công ty Vua Nệm By, Hon 1.000 ca nhiễm mỗi Ngày 13/12, Thanh tra Sở Văn hóa Thế thao Hà Nội đã làm việc với ông Hoàng kx‹ nel eaas dang quan ly Tuấn Anh, Giám đốc Công ty Vua Nệm, và lãnh đạo doanh nghiệp thừa nhận

các sai phạm, chấp hành xử lý vi phạm theo quy định 11

Picture 8: The government punished Vua Nem for offensive advertisement in Cat

Linh station Finally, Vua Nem had to apologize to customers for using inappropriate images to

introduce their products “Chúng tôi gửi lời xin lỗi chân thành đến người dân Hà Nội

và những đơn vị, cá nhân đã bị ảnh hưởng vi sự kiện này”, said the brand

representative of Vua Nem

13

ECONOMY GROUP

yy | SUKIEN | TAP DOAN | TAICHINH ĐỊA ỐC | CHỨNG KHOÁN | CÔNG NGHỆ | QUỐC TẾ | EcoTV

Vua Nệm chính thức xin lỗi sau ồn ào cởi trần quảng cáo trên tàu điện

Đại diện thương hiệu Vua Nệm đã có buổi làm việc với Sở Văn hóa và Thể thao Hà Nội liên quan đến

hoạt động quảng cáo trên và đang chờ kết luận từ cơ quan quản lý

Liên quan đến sự việc nhóm nam thanh niên cởi trần chụp ảnh trong khoang tàu điện Cát Linh - Hà Đông

đốc Sở Văn hóa và Thể thao Hà Nội cho biết, toàn bộ quy trình xử lý liên quan đến việc thương hiệu Vua

Nộm cho người cởi trần chụp ảnh quảng cáo trong tàu điện Cát Linh - Hà Đông vẫn đang được Sở làm

tổng thể giải quyết

Trả lời báo chí, đại diện thương hiệu Vua Nệm cho biết, ngay sau khi sự việc diễn ra và gây dư luận

trình đợi kết luận cuối cùng