marketing plan for mini game online of vtc company in ho chi minh city market

TUTOR’S COMMENTS I am writing to confirm that the project entitled: MARKETING PLAN FOR MINI GAME ONLINE OF VTC COMPANY IN HO CHI MINH CITY MARKET Prepared by Mr.. NEW MARKETING PLAN FOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I wish to express my deep gratitude to my advisor and Committee Chairman,

Professor Thang for his useful guidance, suggestions and encouragement through out the research work

I also would like to extend genuine thanks to Mr Huy, Ms Tâm and other staffs at VTCHCM company for their help and suggestion during the implementation of my research study

Thanks are also due to my friend, Dung, who had helped me during the customer survey

And the most wholehearted gratitude I wish to express to my parents and my brother for their endless love, cares, encouragement and supporting to me during the course of my study

Last, I would like to thank overall professors from Solvay Business School and Ho Chi Minh City Open University as well as my classmates for their supports via lectures, discussions, debates, comments and feedbacks throughout my all Master program

TUTOR’S COMMENTS

I am writing to confirm that the project entitled:

MARKETING PLAN FOR MINI GAME ONLINE OF VTC COMPANY IN HO CHI MINH CITY MARKET

Prepared by

Mr THAI HOANG TU

Has satisfied the requirement for a Master’s project in Business and Marketing Management

I, therefore, recommend that the project be presented

Tutor

NGUYEN THANG

TABLE OF CONTENT

Title Page Title Page i

Declaration ii

Acknowledgement iii

Tutor’s comment iv

Table of Content v

List of Figure vii

List of Table viii

Excutive Summary 1

1 INTRODUCTION 2

1.1 Company descriptions 2

1.2 Problem statement 3

1.3 Objectives 3

1.4 Conceptual frame work of the study 4

1.5 Scope and limitation of the work 4

2 GAME ONLINE MARKET IN VIETNAM 5

2.1.Macro enviroment analysis 5

2.1.1 Economic trends and outlook 5

2.1.2 Economic remarks on the regulatory enviroment 6

2.1.3 Major Political issues affecting the business climate 7Error! Bookmark not defined 3 INTERNAL ENVIROMENT ANALYSIS AND REVIEW OF CURRENT MARKETING STRATEGIES OF VTCZONE 7

3.1.Challenge 7

3.2.Situation analysis 7

3.2.1 Company analysis 8

3.2.2 Customer analysis 8

3.2.3 Industry attractive and competitor analysis 9

3.2.3.1 Market position 9

3.2.3.2 Branding 9

3.2.3.3 Porter's 5 forces 9

3.2.4 Collaborators 13

3.2.5 Climate 13

3.3.Review of current marketing strategies of VTCZone 13

3.3.1 Media relationship 13

3.3.2 Website: 14

3.3.3 Events 14

3.4.SWOT analysis 14

3.5.Use Swot analysis's results 16

3.5.1 Use Strength 16

3.5.2 Stop weaknesses 16

3.5.3 Exploit opportunity 16

3.5.4 Defense against threats 16

3.6.Collusion 16

4 NEW MARKETING PLAN FOR MINI GAME ONLINE OF VTC IN HOCHIMINH CITY MARKET 17

4.1.Positioning and Market Segmentation 17

4.1.1 Positioning 17

4.1.2 Officer 10 minutes segment 17

4.1.3 Gamer segment 17

4.1.4 Other segments 17

4.2 Marketing Mix 18

4.2.1 Product 18

4.2.2.Price 20

4.2.3.Distribution 20

4.2.4.Promotion 20

4.3 Selected Marketing Strategies 21

4.3.1 Encourage member to play 22

4.3.2 Attract and recruit new users 22

4.3.3 Customer care and royalty program 22

4.3.4 Maintaining positive image 22

4.3.5 Brand-building via brand ambassador 22

4.3.6 Sponsorship in game shows, top programs, event 23

4.3.7 Outcome projection 23

4.4.Alternative Marketing Strategies 23

4.4.1 Re-branding 23

4.4.2 Discontinuting Product 23

4.4.3 Repositioning 23

4.5 Implementation plan 23

4.5.1 Product Design and Developement 23

4.5.2 Marketing & Sales 23

4.5.3 Distributors 24

4.5.4 Resource Requirements 24

4.5.5 Scheduling 24

5 EVALUATION AND MONITORING

6 FINACIAL INFORMATION

6.1 Budgeting 26

6.2 Short & Long-term Projections 26

7 CONCLUSIONS 28

LIST OF FIGURE

Figure 2.1 Milestone of shorterm and longterm projections 28

LIST OF TABLE

Executive Summary

A high-level summary of the marketing plan

At present, mini games online (MGO) market in HCM city is spontaneous There are not really strong brands Except Zing of Vina Game Co is free playing VTC HCM will establish MGO department in next few month Main functions and missions of this department are to develop MGO in HCM Especially, products will be produced on demand (outsourcing) by MGO production partners It is a potential opportunity for VTC which builds a marketing planning for MGO approach in HCM market

Designing Marketing planning for this market will be a decision factor for market share and sales 10 minutes officer and card player are good selections



1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Company description

Branch of Vietnam Multimedia Corporation in Ho Chi Minh City (here is shortened Branch) is a subsidiary company directly under VietNam Multimedia Corporation-VTC; established by Decision No 264-QĐ/TCCB-VTC dated June 14th, 2006 of VTC’s Management Board; Scope

of business is performed on Registration Certificate No 4116000735 that has been issued by Business Registration Office - Department of Investment and Planning of HCMC

VIET NAM MULTIMEDIA CORPORATION-VTC

BRANCH OF VIETNAM MULTIMEDIA CORPORATION IN HO CHI MINH CITY

Address: 43C - 43D Ho Van Hue Street, Ward 9, Phu Nhuan Dist, HCMC, VietNam

Tel/Customer Care: 19001593 - Fax: 08 3 997 6384

Website: http://vtczone.vn

Services:

Supplying services directly

- Added value services on television (SMS) by 8x39

- Online games: Qworld, Zhu Xian, Chi Bi

Supplying services as an area contributor

- Space Cowboy, Audition, Crazy Kart, Cross Fire, FIFA Online 2, Ling Wang

Supplying services in the future

- Mini games for cell phone

- Educational Equipment and digital book for all ages

Vision:

General Target

Making to be a strong brand, business activities specialize in field of multi-media that is based

on application of modern technics, multipartite cooperation relations, together staff with high

- For the period from 2006-2010: Consolidating the structure; Enlarging cooperation relations;

Developing and supplying services based on application of modern technics; Investing in

infrastructure suitably and re-preparing for making brand

- For the period after the year 2010: Developing and supplying services selectively; guarantee

quality; satisfied demand; making to be strong brand and operating from ISO

developmet tendency of VietNam Therefore, VTCZone prepare caraefully products and

Marketing strategies in order to broadcast and launching products to market, achieve a certain market share To make trust and stable growth in business

1.3 Objectives

Specific objectives: The focus of the thesis is to address and solve the following issues:

1 Analysis overall, current market and industry condition for online mini games , specifically for officer in Ho Chi Minh city market

2 What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threads of mini games of VTC

in market HCM city?

3 How to develop alternative competitive strategies and recommendations suitable strategy for gamers in this market?

4 How to encourage more gamers to join in MGO?

5 What improvements to increase the images of VTC mini games online

Conceptual frame work of the study

The analysis of current performance of industry and company is based on the process of strategic management, which is used to implement SWOT analysis for the company First company missions and goals are examined Then external and internal environments are analyzed to identify strategic situation that company is facing Strategies are developed for the company and evaluated to choose the most suitable one for recommendation Figure 1.1 illustrates the

framework of the research study

Figure 1.1 Framework of the study

Scope and limitation of work

The objectives of this paper are only focuses on mini games online on Game Online market of VTC game online in HCM branch The reason to choose this product is that it contributes an important proportion in company total revenue and that this one is still new in company

Limitation

The unavailability of information about sales volume of each product categories, timing of sales

of each product, and expenditure on activities such as advertising, promotion, administration constrains deep analysis on the profitability MGO and on marketing mix activities

Limited information on industry and competitors (competitors’ past strategy and behavior) places certain barrier to detail analysis about the competitive situation that is happening

2 GAME ONLINE IN VIETNAM

2.1 M ACRO ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

2.1.1 Economic trends and outlook

Regarding the number of Internet users, in 2010, Vietnam is in the Top 20 but down to

19, dropped one rank from 2009 According to statistics 6 / 2010 says as follows: group 1 with

49 countries, 57 of group 2, 120 of group 3 and group 4 from 20 countries Vietnam is located at the bottom of Group 2 with a rate of 28.39% but above the world average (26.6%), surpassing China, India, Philippines, Thailand (group 3) Percentage of users, Vietnam ranked 116, retains the previous year's rankings

Until February 2009, Vietnam has a total of 15 enterprises released 45 online game (GO) in the third category MMORPG, casual games and webgame In 24 games that originated in Korea, otherwise originating from China There was a game VinaGame and Chinese business

development

According to estimates, total revenue GO service market in 2008 reached about U.S $ 80 million with the number of employees about 3700 people, they pay taxes to the state budget is estimated at 287 billion Also had many local enterprises producing games for the foreign market (Gameloft, GlassEgg) or the first time the two parties cooperate to develop games like

VinaGame projects T812 and entertainment portal Zing

Among many of publishers in Vietnam, 95% share of the three "big" is the VNG, VTC and FPT Although a member of the club and digital content of the Vinasa (Business Software Association of Vietnam), but the competition between three firms are very large, from human resources to compete, won the bidding rights to release game representatives of competing or tearing each other's posters and internet service in the shop

The war between the Publishers has created an extremely vibrant market, but also quite shocked and unbalanced Running after profits, vendors are scrambling to draw money from the player that many become unbalanced game content, product life cycles are shortening

Although all three major publishers and a few small companies were prepared to invest in Vietnam game production, but the amount of investment compared to total profits or less than the amount invested in the game's new foreign still too small Not easy to make games, but it is not done in Vietnam Project T812 (Thuan Thien Kiem) VNG's is not as bad a start

Businesses are afraid to invest in production game for two main reasons: fear not

compete with imported games and lack of manpower business issues that concern most oriented of the State on the digital content industry and online gaming

game-2.1.2 Economic remarks on the regulatory environment

This seems a good time for the Goverment, enterprises and communities of gamers together links to adjust and supplement to better the industry If all the parties to seriously look into the factor market, invested properly, the online game market in Vietnam certainly more potential for Vietnamese enterprises

In addition, provisions to release the game to take a year to register, according to the enterprise, this will affect negotiations with partners and selecting suitable business game

Follow the instructions on Information Technology Law, online games and free online foreign origin may be of special consumption tax of 30% This makes the business enterprise actually quite worried because most of the profits to be divided by sales partners and not as high

as before

In 2006, the State issued the first legal document (a joint circular on management of online gaming - online gaming - the 60/2006/TTLT/BVHTT-BBCVT-BCA) In particular, some key provisions focused "game management through the evaluation and technical content, limited hours of play with each account and banned from trading virtual items."

Although there are many different opinions about the actual effectiveness of this circular, but since the circulars mentioned above, there are many titles have not been licensed in Vietnam,

or had to modify many before the circular was communicated to the players to reduce the level

Specifically, management agencies assess the content of some games for disposal,

resolutely closed Internet shop near schools and they asked that the publisher must be serious about playing time is limited such as buying and selling virtual items

The inspectors made a number of consecutive games before that have not respected the general regulations have to seriously improve accordingly While ignoring issues of right and wrong debate, whether or not violations of the parties concerned we can see that the

fluctuations in the market at this time of the game is corollary of history sector in recent years

2.1.3 Major Political Issues affecting the business climate

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) is a one-Party state controlled by the

Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) The VCP’s constitutionally mandated leading role, the occupancy of nearly all senior government positions by Party officials, and the Party’s extensive network down to the village level and through mass organizations ensures the primacy of

guidelines from the Party’s Political Bureau (Politburo) The Party and the Government have a long-standing policy of not tolerating dissent and of prohibiting independent political, religious and labor organizations The National assembly, chosen in elections in which all candidates are approved by the Party and most are Party members, remains largely subservient to the VCP, as does the judiciary

Besides, Ministry and City Department lack of uniformity in the assessment regulations have also brought difficulties to the business The publisher and investors always need a stable business environment, orientation, support, commitment and close cooperation between the Goverment management policies

3 INTERNAL ENVIROMENT ANALYSIS AND REVIEW OF CURRENT MARKETING STRATEGIES OF VTCZONE

- To retain its present image as high quality MGO in online Game market

- Become a TOP mini game company of HCM area

- On Top of accessing MGO account

 Financial goals

- Achieve 6 billion VNĐ per months through first 3 year

- To obtain a return on equity of at least 20 percent

3.2 Situation Analysis

3.2.1 Company Analysis

 Goals:

o Top 3 Mini game online

o Top 1 Games online in Việt Nam

o 15.000+ Internet Cafe connected ~ 90% Vietnam territory

o 1000+ Internet Cafe belong to iCafe (VTC Internet Cafe standard)

o Total bandwidth 15+ GB connect directly to VDC, FPT, Viettel (TOP 3

broadband provider)

 Billing

o Single ID and single currency (V-Coin) system

 Culture: Customer – oriented, Team Work

 Strengths:

o Have a large of number gamers who come from another GO of VTC online

o VTC Online is one subsidiary company of VNPT Group

o Easy for customers to access and do transactions on Game

 Weaknesses:

o Working procedures have been built, but still not professional

o Human resource is not stable The structure with the majority of young staffs will limit the ability to solve the problems in daily activities due to the lack of

experiences and qualification

 Market share:

o To gain 30% account market share in Game market MGO is new market

o 10 games / Market leader / Apx 40% market share (Dec 2009)

o 40M+ registered / 15M+ active / 350K+ CCU / 4M+ paying

3.2.2 Customer Analysis

Pearl Research, (America) a market research company announces a new research, title is “Game Online market in VietNam”, forecasts numbers of gamer in VietNam will exceed 10M at year 2011 In 2008, Vinagame estimates Vietnam will have 1,5M regular gamer, it is primary young people

Percentage attending school up to two thirds of online gamers today, followed by the group of office workers This is the result of a sociological survey on the latest online games in

GO playing tendency focuses on young people, in there concentrate in 16 – 20 years old group (42,1%), this is a group who have ability to completely aware of their behaviors Next is

10 – 15 group (26,3%), 21 – 25 groupi (22,0%), 26 – 30 group (9,5%)

Remarkable, although this result is the proportion of men than women play GO, however, the percentage of women participating in the online game service is also very high This suggests that demand for gaming is a real demand in both men and

In terms of income, most of the players GO no income or income is not high, because most of these people were pupils, students - the object is considered to be dependent on family, not involved in job market and economic activity

According to officer, through private survey(50 officers), the data are as follows:

o 70% have played online games on facebook, Vinagames, FPT, VTC(mostly male)

o 50% agree play game online for relaxing In there, 95% relax playing more than

10 minutes

3.2.3 Industry attractive and Competitor Analysis

3.2.3.1 Market position:

MGO market is started rising from 2008 with appearance of Zing, BenThuongHai, FPT

Up to now, daily competitors are more stronger and they expand to other fields

Morever, new rising competitors also gain a not small marketshare, and not considerable But we must notice

- Have many attractive promotion programs

- Folky interface, nearby with consumers

- Updating continuously new items.Offline activities, events holding enclose with enrich awards

3.2.3.3 Porter’s 5 force:

We apply Porter’s 5 force to estimate competitors, such as:

Potentials entrance: Threat of new entrance

- Vietnam Mobile Operators such as MobiFone, VinaPhone, Viettel, MobileVietNam etc,… which long-term tendency will extends activities into MGO market interacting mobile phone systems, they will be strong competitors with big capital resources

- Foreign game companies will see Vietnam GO market which develops strongly (China, Korea, Malaysia etc), they will invest into Vietnam in order to speed up business growth

of enterprises

- Big digital companies will gradually grow up in strength, they can deploy theirselves and can cooperate, associate together in order to make total strengths competing to gain market share

Buyers: Bargaining Power of Buyers

- Consumers needs want to play simple games, good feedback customer services, friendly payment conditions and shopping inside game must be sastisfied

user MGO enterprises must have Customer Care department which solves timely complaints

- Games are often upgraded and made new and stranger effects

- There should be competition in the game, to create incentives for gamers more interested

in playing games

- It is real entertainement Games

Substitutes: Threat of Substitute Product of Service

- Consumer uses their freetime for shoping

- To use other adding value services of mobile phone as: music listening, mobile game playing, other games playing

- Consumer are gradually tired and bore entertainemnet game, they will change to relax by other forms, such as:book reading, studying, research, picnic, visiting, online business

Suppliers: Bargaining Power of supplier

- Suppliers are GO production partners for VTCZone Company sign agreement contracts with exclusive right conditions which define that partners do not supply or sale for any competitor with any forms

- Besides, VTCZone is permmited to sale for oversea, if saling for country inside, it will discuss with MGO production suppliers

Industry Competitors(Rivalry among existing firms)

a/ Competitor is Zing of VinaGame

Website: http://play.zing.vn/; Copyright©Zing VNG is the managing unit of Zing ICP

License No.: 41/GP-TTDT

Established 9th September , 2004, Vina Corp - VNG (former is VinaGame)

Developing After two years, Portal online entertainment website Zing.vn became No 5 in

Vietnam (according to Alexa) Dated 07/1/2010, VinaGame company officially changed its name to Stock Company Vina Group (VNG), the renamed VNG also can be seen as a strategy to further development in the entertainment market online

of Vietnam

February 2008, Zing Ads was founded to provide online advertising services on the electronic portal Zing Zing Ads business support standard IAB ads, Rich Media, tracking system Besides online advertising services, Zing Ads also provides additional consulting services and

implementation of marketing campaigns online on the portal Zing

VNG products available online from the online game as Swordsman (1 and 2), Feng Shen, Ching Toys, Fantasy, Boom Online, Zing Dance to the rise of Internet services such as e-Portal Zing, Social Networking ZingMe, Zing MP3, 123mua The settlement of the VNG service can use the form to buy prepaid cards for VNG

Human Resources: staff of VNG is 1100 people, of whom 50 key employees

 Image and personality: how is the competitor positioned and perceived?

 Young consumers most like to play MGO of Zing, due to Zing free for a long time to attract consumers

 Many customers love Zing brand before, so it is very easy to use and accept Zing as a image for local teen

 Zing, VinaGame usually held offline and promotion programs to build brand They are taking a Game Top Vietnam, and also Top1 mini online games in Vietnam HCM city in its own market, they dominate 40% market share in online games

 At the awards ceremony ICT Vietnam 2009 by the Ministry of Information and Communication held in March 2010, VNG has been honored with three awards: Enterprise of the best content, young entrepreneurs with potential The best development, enterprise products, digital content brand's most successful Vietnam

 In 2006, VinaGame was awarded "Top 50 best employers in Vietnam" by Navigos Group and AC Nielsen in collaboration with Thanh Nien newspaper awarded

 Objectives:

 Resources of Zing very strong, with strong capital They always lead and ambition will lead to many years in the online gaming market, and especially the mini games online

 Their goal is to achieve> 50% market share of online mini-game in Vietnam in the next 5 years

 Current and past strategies, what are the implications for future strategic move?

 Culture: what is the most important to the organization- cost control, entrepreneurship,

 Weakness:

 According to sources from the forum and the opinions of gamers, they reflected the company VNG is a process not transparent, often lock the accounts that they suspect Gamer's VNG also said they could not do anything when VNG locked their accounts and did not inform them that any specific information

b/ Competitor is Ken/BenThuongHai

Website: http://gameken.us; http://benthuonghai.com

BenThuongHai game was built by five friends, they use the home office and set

up the game First time their illegal business with a benthuonghai.com domain, then they switch to ken.vn and now their domain name is http://gameken.us

 Image and personality: how is the competitor positioned and perceived?

 One of the sites business gambling mini-game and first in VietNam is a gamer community groups to accept

 Game of their mostly gambling

 Security system is not good, but thanks to the policies in time should the gamer acceptable

 Objectives: what does competitor commit resources to, for high growth or

differentiation strategy?

 BTH want to stand in the top5 business enterprises in Vietnam MGO

 Culture: Business motto of the company is now profitable

 Strength:

- It is one of the Company's business in Vietnam MgO

- BTH have a large account number playing MGO, especially the folk game VietNam

 Weakness:

- Brand is not as strong and clear

- Exploiting the load through SMS is not released through the cards

- Number of account not much Not really a strong source of capital

- The management team is not really strong enough

Evaluation:

- Competitors are VinaGame, Zing, BenThuongHai, big digital companies, mobiphone games of operators etc,…

- Zing and some foreign games companies permit gamer to play games with free

accounts.This enables gamer to feel comfortable This is a big obstacle that we need to overcome

3.2.4 Collaborators

 Subsidiaries: VTCZone has many other GOs, then it has a lot of existing accounts

 Distributors: VTCZone has partners which produce account cards for company, and company builds distribution channel, releases Cards at public internet business

Point(Shop) in HoChiMinh city area

3.2.5 Climate

SLEPT analysis:

- Social-cutural: Vietnam is proud of stable sociocultural environment Increasing the

GDP, earning helps people enjoy higher level in living standard Children get better education, people are more customer-oriented, wiki-oriented About 7 million of internet users, ¾ of these users are officers and students, high knowledge of computing and internet competence 1/3 of gamers in HCM city choose mini games online as their relaxing A large number of potential gamers arewhat to be expected in near future

- Legal: Game Online is supported by the Ministry of Communication và Informarion

Vietnamese government is re-controlling harmful GO affects But it still encourages to develop GO with a healthy entertainement role in according to culture, life way of VietNam people

- Economic: In year 2010, Vietnamese GDP growth rate reached 8 % Gamer spend much

of their budget for relaxing The economic is high inflation rate recently

- Political: More cooperation with other governments More foreign investors do business

in Vietnam

- Technology: Vietnamese is reported to be one of the countries that have good computing

technology in Asia 1/5 Vietnamese population have their own PC Among them, a million people have internet access at home or at work Vietnam Game software production companies produce gradually MGO for theirselves companies, or export, outsource to overseas

- Future: Vietnam Companies can produces many Game for theirselves Besides, MGO is

produced on 3G platform with growth in depth Mobile operators are concerning and finding out to stimulate this needs This is a hot digital content provider market in nearing future

3.3 Review of current marketing strategies

Currently VTCZone major trading online games such as Audition, Tru Tien The company's marketing strategy focuses on three main strategies: media, website, events

3.3.1 Media relations:

VTCZone advantages is the son of VTC Television channels, online news, so relationships with the media very well

- Television: HTV, VTC, SCTV

- Newspaper: vtc.vn, ThanhNien, TuoiTre, Laodong, Nguoilaodong, SGGP, Vietnam news

- Magazine: Echip, PCWorld …

- Web: vtc.vn; vtczone.vn, game website

- Forum: game forums

Objective:

- Maintain and develop the good relationship with media agencies

- To control public informations, deal with the risks necessary to protect the brand and product.

- Increase brand awareness, product launching strategies to clients

3.3.2 Website

In Game inviroment, website has important role in:

- Marketing and branding

- Knowledge, Skill, Experience, Social & Culture exchange

- To appeal to sponsors in oder to sponsor events, competitions

- To introduce new games, new items and new functions

- To encourage competition among gamers: online competition on game website in order

to stimulate spirit and make exciting in game playing

- To encourage gamers to build gamer community and contact groups

Objective/Evaluation:

- Increase image, brand perceptions

- encourage to increase accounts

- increase revenue growth

- Increase game loving

3.4 SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis of the business environment can be performed by organizing the

environmental factors as follows:

gamers from other games in the network's online VTC

VTC is a part of Communication information Ministry department

Easy for customers to access and do transactions on Game

Offerings -High-quality products (Qualified Partner,

New mini game online brand

Personel Good work force, though small; little

turnover

Working procedures have been built, but still not professional

Human resource is not stable The structure with the

majority of young staffs will limit the ability to solve the problems in daily activities due to the lack of experiences and qualification

Finance The parent company financial support when

needed

Many good relationships with banks

-Small budget for marketing -Financial resources is not strong enough to finance the innovation to increase working efficiency

Manufacturing - The company hired local companies to

Consumer/Social -Fast-growing segment

-High internet user growth rate -High demand and requirements of mini game

Free price