Brand Success Stories
Condiment brand Chin-su stands as a testament to the ability of well-established market leaders to achieve sustained growth. Despite already having a significant presence, Chin-su continued to recruit new buyers in 2024, solidifying its status as a ‘super brand’ across both urban and rural Vietnam. This impressive performance saw it gain over 188,000 shoppers in urban areas and 606,000 in rural areas, maintaining its formidable no.2 and no.3 positions in the Brand Footprint food rankings, respectively.
How did Chin-su achieve such remarkable success from an already dominant market position? The brand's strategy is a masterclass in leveraging three critical levers: new categories, innovations, and more moments.
Chin-su's growth was driven by a deliberate and expansive portfolio strategy. Moving beyond its traditional strongholds, the brand diversified its cooking solution offerings significantly – extending from its core dipping and marinating sauces into a broader range of seasoning products. By doing so, Chin-su effectively covered a wider spectrum of usage needs and targeted more specific cooking occasions within the Vietnamese kitchen.
This saw Chin-su not only expand into entirely new categories, but also launch a greater number of active variants within existing product lines. The approach proved instrumental in exciting consumers and capturing new segments by offering specialised solutions that resonated with evolving and diverse culinary preferences, most notably exemplified by its extensive chilli sauce range.
Innovation also served as a powerful engine for recruitment and relevance. The brand consistently introduced novel products that addressed emerging consumer desires for convenience, enhanced flavour, and unique at-home dining experiences. Key standout innovations in 2024 that helped the portfolio gain more CRPs include Oyster Sauce from Japanese Scallops and Seasoning Granules from Shiitake Mushroom & Kombu. These demonstrate Chin-su's commitment to staying ahead of consumer tastes and providing compelling reasons for existing and new shoppers to choose its products.
Beyond portfolio diversification and innovation, Chin-su distinguished itself through an acute understanding of consumer needs, strategically cultivating and seizing key consumption moments. It positioned its products to facilitate new cooking experiences and occasions, focusing on convenience and bringing restaurant-quality taste into the home.
A prime example is the introduction of the ‘Xốt Nhà Hàng’ (Restaurant Sauce) series of products. This line directly addresses the desire for restaurant-quality meals at home, ensuring that the taste is as good as, if not better than, what consumers might experience outside. Furthermore, Chin-su developed complete seasoning packs not only for typical Vietnamese dishes, but also for more exotic cuisines like Thai hotpot. These convenient solutions simplify complex cooking processes, enabling households to enjoy beloved recipes with reduced preparation time, thereby encouraging increased product adoption and usage.
Chin-su's sustained growth as a ‘super brand’ in 2024 is a clear outcome of its proactive and insightful strategy. By expanding into new categories, delivering impactful innovations that resonate with evolving tastes, and meticulously creating more usage moments through convenience and elevated experiences, Chin-su successfully recruited new shoppers and fortified its market leadership.
Even for established brands, relentless adaptation, consumer-centric innovation, and a comprehensive portfolio strategy are indispensable for winning in today's intensely competitive FMCG landscape.
In Vietnam's increasingly competitive home care sector, Lix is not merely maintaining its leadership position; it is demonstrating significant forward momentum. Ranking as the no.4 most chosen brand in urban areas and no.7 in rural areas – while growing its CRPs – Lix plays in the same league as multinational home care brands. A prime example of a brand that has mastered the art of providing superior value for money, it ensures accessibility and compelling economic appeal for a broad consumer base.
The brand has shown a remarkable capacity to capture market share and accelerate category expansion beyond its core range of laundry detergent powder. In liquid detergent, Lix has grown purchased volume and CRPs at a pace that exceeds both the category as a whole, and the economy liquid detergent segment. This indicates a potent competitive advantage and effective market penetration.
Lix is also expanding robustly within the dishwashing liquid category, managing to grow 14% in volume and 8% in CRPs, while the average across the category declined. This is thanks to its large pack formats, which offer substantial savings and vigorously fuel volume growth, establishing Lix as a preferred choice for value-conscious consumers.
Meanwhile, Lix consistently leverages targeted promotions to engage shoppers, successfully converting these incentives into a significantly higher number of purchasing occasions. This approach positions Lix as a highly attractive option for households seeking to optimise their expenditure without compromising on quality.
While previously a staple for lower and mid-low income households, Lix has made significant inroads into broader demographics. The brand has not only achieved impressive triple-digit growth in shopping occasions among mid-to-lower income consumers, it is also growing strongly within more affluent households. This demonstrates Lix's universal resonance, proving that its value proposition appeals across the entire economic spectrum of Vietnamese consumers. This is a powerful testament to the perceived quality and efficacy of Lix products, which extend its appeal beyond mere affordability.
By consistently delivering exceptional value through promotional programmes and bulk formats, and successfully cultivating loyalty across many consumer segments, Lix has firmly cemented its position as a strong market contender. It is evidence that a profound understanding of consumer needs in uncertain times – coupled with clear market positioning – is paramount for enduring success in today's competitive FMCG environment.
