Competition in coffee market hotter than ever The major players in the instant-coffee market failed to attract public attention with their recent marketing campaigns, but new coffee brands have been able to do this.   Trung Nguyen, the coffee company of Dang Le Nguyen Vu, known as the Vietnamese Coffee King, has not gained success with the G7 brand and his strategy of asking Vietnamese patriots to drink Vietnamese coffee. A branding expert noted that Trung Nguyen’s has not effectively renewed its brand image in the eyes of consumers, and the business strategy has also been inappropriate. The expert said that Trung Nguyen has been pursuing a sales policy which mostly targets traditional markets. But the visitors to traditional markets are mostly housewives, who rarely drink coffee. Thus, it has not approached the clients with the most potential. He went on to say that Vu, the owner of Trung Nguyen, was busy with strategies to compete with Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Highland’s Coffee chains and is paying less attention to instant-coffee products, which are the main source of income for Trung Nguyen. Vinacafe Bien Hoa, also a famous brand in the instant coffee market, which now holds 40 percent of the instant-coffee market share, has been quiet for a long time after the failure of its “real coffee” marketing campaign. Nestle is the only big guy that has stood firm. The company, with Nescafe brand, ranks second in the market in revenue, but first in sales of 3-in-1 instant coffee. After experiencing failure with a canned-liquid coffee, Nestle has been focusing on developing its familiar products to preserve its market share. While the “big guys” have been slowing down their pace, new coffee brands have geared up to conquer the domestic market. Sources said that Phindeli, a newcomer in the market, is going to launch its instant coffee brand. Phindeli has fallen into the hands of Kinh Do Group, a sweets and consumer goods manufacturer which holds a large distribution network in Vietnam. The director of a supermarket chain in Hanoi commented that the “heat” created by Kinh Do has “fanned the nape” of the big guys like Trung Nguyen, Nestle and Vinacafe Bien Hoa. Dao Heuang Group (DHG), the biggest coffee manufacturer from Laos, has officially joined the Vietnamese market through an exclusive Vietnamese distributor. The presence of a Lao coffee brand in Vietnam was a big surprise to many analysts, who commented that DHG must be very daring to confront the “big guys” like Nestle, Trung Nguyen and Vinacafe Bien Hoa. Boonheuang Litdang, vice president of DHG, said she knows about the stiff competition in the Vietnamese coffee market, but she believes there is still room for DHG there. “The presence of Dao coffee brand in Vietnam alone is enough to show that the coffee competition in Vietnam has escalated to a higher level,” the branding expert said. Phuoc Ha, VietNamNet Bridge