Trung Nguyen sets sights on Starbucks’ marketing model

Trung Nguyen Chairman Dang Le Nguyen Vu made headlines in early November when he told Reuters he was looking to replicate the Starbucks marketing model as a global brand.  Vu, who is a Global Coffee Review Columnist and the head of Vietnam's leading coffee company, praised Starbucks for their marketing efforts, and said that he was developing his own model to pitch towards Western markets.  “American consumers don't need another product. They need another story,” Vu told Reuters.  Vu reinforced to Reuters <ideas first expressed to Global Coffee Review in March last year,> that coffee producing nations like Vietnam must promote their own brands, as a way to add value to their product and lift these countries out of development. He told Reuters Vietnam could earn nearly $20 billion from its coffee within the next 15 years, up from $3 billion now, in looking to sell branded roasted product rather than green coffee beans.  Vu told Reuters he was looking to quadruple revenues of Trung Nguyen coffee alone to $1 billion by 2015, taking on big global brands like Nestle's Nescafe and Starbucks. Nelson data confirmed last July that Trung Nguyen's G7 instant coffee was leading the domestic market, with a 38 per cent market share.   “We are like a grasshopper fighting against a giant elephant,” Vu told Reuters. “In terms of technology, marketing, Nestle is way ahead of us. Our strategy is to be smarter and more focused.”