Marketing Conference Series 2022 Impressively Launched with Sharing from Professor David Reibstein

November 15, 2022

On November 12th, VinUni successfully organized the first session of “The Marketing Conference Series 2022” with the theme “Place Marketing & Destination Branding toward Sustainability”. We are honored to welcome Professor David Reibstein, former President of the American Marketing Association, former CEO of the Marketing Science Institute (MSI), and William Stewart Woodside Professor at Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

At his second time in Hanoi and first time at VinUni, Prof. Reibstein started out with an interesting question: “Do geographies have brands of their own?” Through famous marketing case studies of different places from “Comeback to Jamaica” to “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, Prof. Reibstein aimed to emphasize the value of establishing a national brand in attracting tourists, investors and contribute to local economy.

At this special conference, Prof. Reibstein, the father of the Best Countries national brand ranking, also revealed the top 10 factors that make up a strong national brand, including: Agility, Entrepreneurship, Quality of Life, Movers, Social Purpose, Cultural Influence, Open for Business, Power, Fun, and Heritage. Besides leading national brands such as Switzerland and Germany, Vietnam is ranked 47th, with positive indicators such as #29 in Open for Business or #24 in Movers. Interestingly, almost all the countries rated themselves higher than their actual rankings (Vietnamese rank their own country at 15th).

From there, our keynote speaker wraps up the session with an important lesson about national brand positioning: If negative perceptions are inaccurate, change the misperceptions. If negative perceptions of the country reflect reality, change policy.