VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
TRAN THI CHIEN
A STUDY ON CONNECTED MARKETING AND THE CASE OF FPT
CORPORATION’S PROJECT VICONGDONG
Major: Business Administration
Code: 60 34 05
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THESIS
Supervisors:
Dr. TRAN DOAN KIM
Hanoi – 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
ABSTRACT ii
TÓM T TẮ iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii
LIST OF TABLES ix
LIST OF FIGURES ix
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW– CONNECTED MARKETING 4
1.1 Definition: Connected Marketing 4
1.1.1 Marketing 4
1.1.2 Connected Marketing 4
1.2. Types of Connected Marketing 8
1.2.1 Word of mouth marketing 8
1.2.2 Buzz marketing 12
1.2.3 Viral marketing 15
1.3 The power of Connected marketing in digital age 18
1.3.1 Widely connection between the company/organization and customer 18
1.3.2 Building customer’s trust 18

REFERENCES 109
vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AMA : American Marketing Association
C2C : Customer-to-Customer
CEO : Chief Executive Officer
CPC : Cost Per Click
CSR : Corporate Social Responsibility
CTR : Click Through Ratio
G.A : Google Analytics
NGO : Non-Governmental Organization
OL : Opinion leader
OPA : Online Publisher Association
WOM : Word of Mouth
WOMMA : Word of Mouth Marketing Association
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Statistics on Vicongdong.vn Page 90
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1: An example of a social network diagram Page 5
Figure 1.2: Ordering Icecards process. Source: Icemedia Company Page 10
Figure 1.3: The comparison between Buzz marketing and Traditional
marketing
Page 13
Figure 1.4: Ways of transferring and receiving information before
and now
Page 21
Figure 1.5: Traditional marketing model Page 22
Figure 1.6: The modern marketing model Page 24
Figure 1.5: Models of media influence Page 33

Figure 2.24: Alexa statistics – Up stream sites of Vicongdong.vn Page 84
Figure 2.25: Alexa statistics –Down stream sites of Vicongdong.vn Page 85
Figure 2.26: Alexa Statistic - Daily pageviews per user of
vicongdong.vn
Page 88
Figure 3.1: A sample of an ecard on Vithiep.vn Page 92
Figure 3.2: Topology model - Source: Marketing Department, Visky
FPT
Page 96
Figure 3.3: Fractural marketing at FPT Page 97
Figure 3.4: Creating communication message Page 98
Figure 3.5: An example of Google Analytics Page 103
Figure 3.6: An example of Google Analytics using campaigns Page 104
Figure 3.7a: A sample of the new marketing solution Page 104
Figure 3.7b: A sample of a new campaign - Choose a cause Page 105
Figure 3.8: A sample of a new campaign - Supporter chooses
Colgate as your sponsor
Page 105
Figure 3.9: A sample of a new campaign - On supporter’s profile Page 106
x
INTRODUCTION
The problem
Firstly, Vicongdong has no clear and long time marketing plan. There are only
some separate activities which have not related tightly to FPT Corporation. Whereas
FPT fund is a fund used to implement FPT’s corporate social responsibility (CSR)
and Vicongdong plays the most important role to its CSR.
Secondly, Vicongdong.vn is only a website used Web technology 2.0. Its
propagation or distribution may reach much more than geometrical progression. It
means that the connection will be certainly crucial.
Finally, FPT’s managers wish to create a result of much more than 1 $ when

Research question
Why the project hasn’t had a clear marketing plan?
How Vicongdong can help FPT Corporation doing CSR and then help FPT
build great image?
How will connected marketing theory be more suitable for building marketing
plan for Vicongdong?
Which disadvantages will affect the feasibility of marketing plan for
Vicongdong?
Significance
The thesis seems to be necessary for Vicongdong at this period and it may be
reference for other companies want to do CSR most effectively.
Limitation
Connected marketing theory is relatively new and incipient in Vietnam so it
requires some different factors. The access to data source may be incorrect and lack
of information. It requires some certain knowledge on donation and community
activities.
Expected result
2
The author respect it to apply connected marketing theory on the case of
Vicongdong and build a marketing plan based on this theory.
Follow up potential
In the case of approval by the project, the author would like to study deeply to
apply in reality with more information and time. It will be basic for studying theory
“built to last” for FPT Corporation. The author also want to study an adjusted
theory suitable for Vietnamese companies
Content
The content includes three parts:
Chapter 1: Literature review – Connected marketing
Chapter 2: External environment analysis and connected marketing activity of
Vicongdong

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more and more easily. If Nokia, for example of a mobile brand has helped us
“connecting people” for such a long time, we can visibly realize that nowadays, the
connection is very, very, very huge. The author not only connects in a small space,
short time and domestically but also connects together in global level and with no
limitation. So, it is not speaking with exaggeration when we say that: connect or
die! And I think that it is really true with economic organizations.
Marketing industry responds very quickly with the development of the age.
We easily understand because it always focuses on people, everything around
human beings to serve the research on people’s demand, bring satisfaction and even
suggestion of product choices for people’s needs. Marketing itself no longer appears
as before. The traditional marketing efforts reveal their weakness. We can take the
following famous quotes for reference:
“The traditional marketing model we all grew up with is obsolete”- Jim
Stengel, Global Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble, 2004
[43]
5
Figure 1.1: An example of a
social network diagram. The
node with the highest
centrality is marked in
symbol that the arrow goes
into.
Source: Wikipedia
/>Social_network
“Mass marketing today is a mass mistake” - Larry Light, Chief Marketing
Officer, McDonalds, 2004
[38]
“For the first time the consumer is boss, which is fascinatingly frightening,
scary and terrifying, because everything we used to do, everything we used to

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only a second! It doesn’t unlike a virus, even “more intelligent and dangerous” than
a real kind of virus. It means that marketers can design marketing messages and get
the customer’s attention much more than before.
Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden defined the term Connected Marketing in
their work that it is a marketing term relating to new marketing techniques that
“using word of mouth connections as marketing media to drive growth. It covers
three emerging techniques in marketing: viral marketing, buzz marketing and word
of mouth marketing”
[53]
Viral Marketing: “Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages
individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for
exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such
strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to
thousands, to millions
[69]
.
Buzz Marketing: “A marketing technique that makes use of an actual event
or performance to create word of mouth”
[44]
.
Word of mouth marketing: “Oral, person-to-person communication between
a receiver and a communicator whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial,
concerning a brand, a product or a service”
[6]
Viral, buzz and word of mouth marketing are included in the main concept
“connected marketing”. They also show us the way to divide connected marketing
into three main activities or three marketing techniques to develop a connected
marketing plan.
According to my individual point of view, the concept Connected marketing

1.2.1 Word of mouth marketing
There exists a reality, maybe, from the beginning age of goods exchange that
people often purchase what they see, listen and follow from the others’ behavior,
suggestion. It is very easily to understand. According to the theory of behavior of
Maslow, people have five levels of demand. Out of them, it is the demand of safety.
Imitating the others’ behavior or trying something the others use, it seems likely
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safer than trying with a strange thing. In a broaden extent, we say “schooling
behavior” or “herd behavior”. It can be understood more deeply when viewing
Vietnamese stock market in recent years. People do not respond to the seller, the
company … but respond to what they hear from other independent sources. A
survey brings an useful information: average person has 11 to 12 intimate contacts,
150 social contacts and from 500 to 1,500 weak ties. So, the only true currency in
this world is what individuals share with someone else. There is a large body of
research shows that people gather information from marketing materials, experts,
famous people, professional magazines … then talk it over with their friends. They
buy in response to what other people say about the product. In fact, “the world of
marketing really revolves around word of mouth” – George Silverman, President
and Founder of Market Navigation, Inc. One talk, people listen. Then they talk it
over with their friends, family and trusted advisors. Then they purchase, but not
before talking about the product. So getting people to talk often, favorably, to the
right people in the right way about a brand or a product is by far the most important
thing that a marketer has to do.
The open library Wikipedia defines: “Word of mouth is a reference to the
passing of information from person to person. Originally the term referred
specifically to oral communication
[52]
(literally words from the mouth), but now
includes any type of human communication, such as face-to-face, telephone, email
and text messaging”

old customer or an independent expert. Suppose that a person are intending to
purchase a laptop and he has seen ads of Palm, HP and Sony; even that he saw them
at laptop supermarket and heard many information from seller, he has not still
decided to take it. Then a friend told him about a Palm laptop and how this friend
changed his life or he read information on a famous newspaper about the
examination about it. Immediately, it affected this person and he decided to take
one Palm.
Philip Kotler said that “word- of- mouth marketing is developing naturally
base on Internet development and mobile phone, it is more credible than advertising
and has a huge marketing power”
[57]
.
Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden, authors of the book “Connected Marketing,
The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution” gave us a useful summary of an
early research on word of mouth offered the following definition:
“Oral, person-to-person communication between a receiver and a
communicator whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial, concerning a
brand, a product or a service”
[30]
In the other word, let’s say, word of mouth marketing is marketing
techniques making people become natural brand advocates. It is the actual sharing
of an opinion about a product or service between two or more consumers. In word
of mouth marketing, finding out right people (the influencer of community) and
giving them necessary information about a product/service are very important. They
are called Leading Opinion who attracts many fans or gets much interest from a
community. Their concerns about anything immediately pick up many attentions
from the others.
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1.2.2 Buzz marketing
In order to understand exactly what buzz marketing is, it’s useful to break the

about your brand.”
12
Figure 1.3: The comparison between Buzz marketing and Traditional
marketing
[67]
The marketing pattern here is let outsiders say, instead of you. The author
realize that rumor will be triggered out when it is worth to make people transfer the
information. Buzz marketing takes a role of creating people excitement to tell to
others about their memorable and good experiences. Buzz marketing appears mostly
in offline patterns and simultaneously or immediately initiated by e.g. online
campaign. So, it can be implemented in the form of an event, an entertainment, an
exciting activity, shock advertising, big exclusive panels, sexy ads or taboo clips …
that generates publicity, excitement, controversy and information to people.
However, it requires great product or service.
Buzz marketing is often used as part of the "seeding" campaign to help get
the word out about a new viral ad”. It is known that if buzz is done right, people
will write about it, so it essentially becomes a great PR vehicle. Marketing
executive has to give people a reason to talk about our brand. Therefore, an
effective buzz marketing campaign will create an effect of an epidemic, we can say
as “everywhere you go, you hear people talking about it".
The power of buzz marketing may be included in the statement of Philip
Kotler at an international seminar on Marketing in Ho Chi Minh city on 17
th
August
13
2007 as: “ Buzz marketing is a really vehicle that marketers can use to increase the
popularity, the hormone about some information of product and service”.
Marketers have many tactics to implement buzz marketing. And then the
conservation among community starts. Taking some buzz marketing activities from
past company, we recruit 6 main signs of buzz:

and Jack Smith of Java Soft Incorporation approached DFJ with the idea and Tim
Draper suggested adding an advertising message at the bottom of each outgoing
Hotmail. Each sent free Hotmail message spurred the receiver of such a message to
also get the free e-mail provider and in turn passed it on to relatives and friends
[40]
.
In 1997 Hotmail reached ten million users. Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400
million that same year
[61]
. Jurvetson and Draper defined viral marketing as
“network-enhanced word of mouth”
[42]
. The advertising message “Get your free e-
mail at Hotmail”, at the bottom of every sent e-mail, was not constrained locally
since the users connected with other Web users outside their hometown. Hotmail
spread at first nation wide, then world wide making Hotmail the single most
frequently used e-mail provider in Sweden and India
[41]
.The advertising budget of
Hotmail was a mere $50.000. Within 18 months, 12 million users became
subscribers, an unheard of record. The innovators of Hotmail were equally surprised
with the rapid spread.
When the author uses the word viral (adj) or virus (n) in marketing, the
author aims that it has a large, large scope of transferring. The author can imagine it
as an epidemic with a very swiftly speed of spreading.
According to Wikipedia, “viral refer to marketing techniques that use pre-
existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to market or
sell analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses”.
Brice Le Blévennec, President of Emakina web agency commented on the
term of viral marketing as: “An attempt to deliver a marketing message that spreads

– 5% * 20 friends = 0.8 = not exponential
16
When the author mentions this concept, I refer to a marketing method based
on the technology of mobile phone and Internet. Marketers often use some vehicles
as following to apply on viral marketing, branded material, websites, blogs,
advergames, interactive flash, ebooks, widgets, bligets, videos, utilities,
collaboration tools, etc that generate spread.
An online survey revealed the following reasons to forward:
1. Make people laugh
2. Recommend something
3. Competition (joins or helps you win)
4. Earn you some money / reduction
5. Call for charity, noble cause
6. Join a petition
7. Sex
8. Prank
9. Self appreciation
10. Chain mail
A “viral” product often includes the following factors:
1. The product must have a true value to the sender as well as the receiver.
Uninteresting information is not passed on. The content of the product can be a
service, a game, entertainment, greeting cards, monetary incentive, sweepstake etc
2. The service or product is free
3. The product is easily reproducible
4. The product or service is exclusively distributed over the Internet
In conclusion, when organization has a passionate fan base for a brand, the
Internet is especially vital for going viral. The key is communicating to a small but
powerful group of fans first online to enlist their support is a smart way to ensure
positive coverage in the mainstream press. The power of the Internet makes it easier
for people to fall in love with us faster. But we have to be conscious—it also makes

family, friends, colleges, experts …. When they read information from these
sources, they will send or share it for their friends, family, colleges or update for
their fan in social online network. Much of them will consult with their trust
sources. Connected marketing explores this characteristic to select the suitable
influencer or opinion leaders. Opinion leaders surround them a huge number of
fans, friends and their ideas often heavily affect on the peers. They are people who
lead public opinion, share information about what they know about an upcoming
event, a new product, service and especially share their experiences about the
product, service. They are also the company’s target customers. The message from
opinion leader has strong effect on the others that generates the faith of the other
customers on the product, service. Amongst thousands of message that customers
receive daily, which of them gets the interest and then establish the customer’s trust
meaning that it promotes its marketing role.
On the other word, in Connected marketing theory, customers not only share
the information but also their faith.
1.3.3 Cutting marketing cost
Previously, marketers have used Television, radio, print papers, magazine,
newspaper, leaflets … to communicate messages about product/service. We all
know that companies have to give out tremendous amount of money for those
marketing costs. And how we know how many people receive their message? Out
of them, how many people are really interested in and target customers of the
company/organization? If the result is 10 -20% of receivers who are target
customer, it means that 80-90% of communication cost which is actually inefficient.
How Connected marketing deal with this problem? Through information channel to
investigate the customer, marketers have a database set on target customer divided
into age, gender, interest …. Many websites require information on membership
with visitors so easily to statistic these figures. When customers want to know more
about product/service, they will share together, post comments on forum, social
19