The conversations among industry leaders at the MMA (Marketing + Media Alliance) IMPACT Vietnam 2025 marketing event revealed that the country’s industry is shifting at a pace that feels less like evolution and more like whiplash. In a single scroll, a consumer may move from a creator-led livestream to an AI-generated product suggestion, from a TV drama to an in-app checkout, from a viral TikTok recipe to a Google Search validation, all within minutes. Technology is accelerating at one end, human expectations at the other, and brands are caught in the space between.
Tech acceleration
According to Mr. Rohit Dadwal, CEO of MMA APAC and Global Head of marketing awards program SMARTIES Worldwide, the region’s landscape is “in flux” - a market where technology has become the primary engine of transformation. More than half of the world’s internet traffic now comes through mobile, and the share continues to rise each quarter. Even more striking is that 77 per cent of global digital ad spending already occurs on mobile, a figure unimaginable a decade ago. Social platforms alone capture $250 billion of that total, while mobile-first video has become the defining format of digital consumption.
In Vietnam, this is not merely a trend but a cultural pattern. Super-apps shape daily routines, merging commerce, entertainment, and communication into a single ecosystem. Mr. Dadwal described Asia as still “a mobile-first market,” defined by users who may never open a PC yet expect immediacy, personalization, and seamless experiences.
Only 32 per cent of marketers, he warned, believe they can measure media spending with confidence. The rest are operating with partial visibility, navigating privacy regulations, signal loss, and the collapse of third-party cookies. Data, once heralded as the new oil, now requires a complete re-engineering of systems and talent, especially as AI simultaneously magnifies opportunity and complicates execution.
Mr. Viet Anh Trinh, Senior Industry Manager for CPG at Google, argues that the very act of searching is changing, and with it the rules of brand visibility. Vietnam’s Gen Z, he said, does not search, they converse. They pose a question, expect an instant, personalized reply, and rely on AI to synthesize the internet on their behalf.
The challenge for brands, he explained, is no longer bidding on keywords but ensuring their content is authoritative, trustworthy, and purchase-ready within an AI-generated response.
Vietnamese consumers are embracing this change faster than expected. Google Lens handles roughly 20 billion image-based queries a month, and one in four carries commercial intent. Two billion people globally now use Google’s AI Overviews, including in Vietnam, creating a new arena for visibility. Contrary to advertiser fears, Google’s early data shows AI Overviews are driving more high-quality traffic to brand websites, not less.
And despite assumptions that Gen Z searches only on TikTok, they are the heaviest users of Google Search, performing more queries than any other age group. They search more because they trust the AI-powered answers, and because it helps them validate what they see on social platforms. Seventy per cent of social users immediately turn to Google Search to confirm the credibility of a product they encounter online. If a brand is absent in that validation moment, the conversion disappears.
In this environment, new tools become essential. Google’s AI-powered search campaigns - “AI-Max” - scan entire websites, match user intent with creative assets, and generate tailored ads in real time.
What links the perspectives of Mr. Dadwal and Mr. Trinh is not merely the scale of technological change but the urgency behind it. Mobile, video, social commerce, and AI-driven search are reshaping consumer behavior faster than brands can respond. Vietnam’s hyper-connected, AI-assisted users are already moving ahead, forcing marketers to catch up.
The real question now is whether brands can adapt at the pace consumers expect, and build the capabilities to operate in a world where every search is a conversation, every device a storefront, and every interaction a data point demanding sharp execution.
Human-centric branding
For years, digital marketing in Vietnam was defined by the race for reach and the chase for novelty. But as digital maturity rises, a different frontier is emerging, one grounded not in louder campaigns or more advanced technology but in deeper human connection. Brands are discovering that audiences respond most strongly not to spectacle but to sincerity: the sense that a brand sees them, listens to them, and treats them as participants rather than targets.
When Ms. Patricia Marques became General Director of Phuc Long Heritage a year ago, she inherited a brand with rich cultural heritage but a growing disconnect between its identity and consumer expectations. Behind Phuc Long’s products are decades-old tea plantations and growers whose work forms the foundation of the company’s quality. Yet these stories had faded, eclipsed by a marketplace increasingly driven by convenience, trend cycles, and rapid expansion.
What Ms. Marques heard from consumers challenged those assumptions. People were no longer asking what the product was or how much it cost. They were asking where it came from, who made it, and why it mattered. Their questions were not about taste or price, they were about truth.
Her response was to begin at the source. She brought her teams back to the plantations where Phuc Long’s tea is grown and invited employees to speak not only as staff but as consumers. This internal shift proved catalytic. Employees were encouraged to express themselves, innovate without fear, and offer ideas drawn from real-life experience. The culture moved towards transparency and participation, and the brand narrative followed. What emerged was not a marketing tactic but a re-rooting of identity.
She believes consumers instinctively know when a brand practices its values versus merely talking about them. “We all want to be eco-friendly,” she said. “But in reality, we talk about green far more than we actually do it. This was another key learning: consumers know very well who is ‘green talking’ and who is ‘green doing.’”
This evolution in authenticity aligns with what Mr. Phil Worthington, Senior Client Director at Toluna, has observed while evaluating hundreds of campaigns each year for the SMARTIES Awards. He notes that Vietnamese marketers are steadily moving away from formulaic approaches, especially the flashy Gen Z-focused music videos that once dominated award submissions. They generated entertainment but often stopped short of emotional connection.
Today, he sees campaigns anchored in specific human truths: daily rituals, frustrations, cultural habits, and private motivations that shape how people live. Many of the strongest entries elevated everyday consumers as protagonists, not props. Their lives became the narrative lens through which brands communicated value.
Mr. Worthington also highlighted the growing sophistication in how brands interpret consumer insight. Instead of relying solely on traditional research, marketers increasingly mine their CRM (customer relationship management) systems, segmenting customers by real behavior rather than broad demographics. This enables messaging that feels personal, timely, and relevant - less like advertising and more like dialogue.
Around Vietnam, consumers, especially younger ones, are examining brands with sharper eyes. They verify claims, trace origin, and weigh a company’s actions against its promises. Loyalty is no longer assumed, it must be demonstrated and continually renewed. Together, these shifts point to an industry in quiet but profound transition. Technology is accelerating the tools, but people are redefining the meaning. And the stories that endure are those that recognize a simple truth: every data point represents a person who wants to be understood.
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