Failure of advertising activities of honey drop product in queenfood company

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Nguyen Ngoc Thanh Truc

FAILURE OF ADVERTISING
ACTIVITIES OF HONEY DROP
PRODUCT IN QUEENFOOD
COMPANY
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang
Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2021

1


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Queen Food Company is a company specializing in premium, healthy products. Since 2013,
Queen Food has launched Honey Drop Candy. This is a product made from natural
ingredients, good for health. Although, has been in the market for nearly ten years, however,
product advertising activities have not been focused, leading to a decrease in sales and
customers. Through extensive research efforts, two potential problems causing undesirable
results have been identified as (1) Failure advertising activities and (2) Low benefit for the
Wholeseller customers. After the validation process, the first element "Failure advertising
activities" was identified as the main issue. Since then, further analysis was conducted to
identify three potential causes of the problem, namely (1) Ineffective media channel, (2)
Unimpressive advertising appeals and (3) Insufficient human resources. Each of the
aforementioned causes generates two sub-causes. Finally, the Ineffective media channel
was identified as the core cause. Three options have been presented to address this issue.

Alternative Solution 2 was ultimately chosen to design a thorough implementation strategy.

2


ACKNOWLEAGEMENT
My first and big appreciation goes to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang, for her
marvelous supervision, guidance, and encouragement. Sincere gratitude is extended to her
generous participation in guiding, constructive feedback, kind support, and advice during
my thesis. Thank you very much, Ms. Trang.
Also, I greatly appreciate all of the members of our group in ISB MBA 10 for their kind
support. I extend my thanks to all the BOD and staff of Queen Food Company for their
continuous encouragement, support, and willingness to help, as well as they spend their
time for advice and moral support.
Last, but not least, my warm and heartfelt thanks go to my family for their tremendous
support and hope they had given to me. Without that hope, this thesis would not have been
possible. Thank you all for the strength you gave me. I love you all!

3


Contents
1

2

3

COMPANY INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 8
1.1

Company Overview .................................................................................................................... 8

1.2

Organization structure ............................................................................................................... 8

1.3

Sales Department ........................................................................................................................ 9

1.4

Product......................................................................................................................................... 9

1.5

Wholesale market segment: ....................................................................................................... 10

SYMTOMS ............................................................................................................... 11
2.1

The number of customers who stop cooperating increases. .................................................. 11

2.2

Revenue decrease...................................................................................................................... 12

PROBLEMS IDENTIFICATION .......................................................................... 12
3.1

4

Potential problems .................................................................................................................... 12

3.1.1

Potential Problem 1: Failure advertising activities ............................................................ 13

3.1.2

Potential Problem 2: Low benefit for the Wholeseller customers ....................................... 15

3.2

Cause-and-effect tree................................................................................................................ 16

3.3

Problem Validation: ................................................................................................................. 16

CAUSE IDENTIFICATION ................................................................................... 18
4.1

Potential Causes: ...................................................................................................................... 18

4.2

Potential cause 1: Ineffective media channel ......................................................................... 18

4.2.1

Unrealistic target audience ................................................................................................ 18

4.2.2

Improper Use of passive Media .......................................................................................... 19

4.3

Potential cause 2: Unimpressive advertising appeals ............................................................. 20

4.3.1

Lack of effective content creative ........................................................................................ 21

4.3.2

Lack of professional designer ............................................................................................. 21

4.4

Potential cause 3: Insufficient human resources .................................................................... 22

4


4.4.1

Understaffed issue .............................................................................................................. 23

4.4.2

Inexperienced staff.............................................................................................................. 23

4.5

5

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS. ............................................................................. 28
5.1

6

Cause validation: ...................................................................................................................... 25

Components for facebook advertising post ............................................................................ 29

5.1.1

Caption ............................................................................................................................... 29

5.1.2

Photos/videos...................................................................................................................... 29

5.2

The goal of advertising on facebook ........................................................................................ 29

5.3

Process of managing facebook channel ................................................................................... 30

5.4

Altinative Solutions: ................................................................................................................. 30

5.5

Justification of alternative solutions........................................................................................ 31

SUPPORTING INFORMATION ........................................................................... 34
6.1

METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................................... 34

6.2

TRANSCRIPT ........................................................................................................................... 34

Interview transcript: Ms. Winnie - Director of Queen Food......................................................... 34
Interview transcript: Mr. Phuong – Sale Manager of Queen Food Company............................. 37
Interview transcript: Ms Diep – Marketing Manager of Queen Food Company ........................ 38
Interview transcript: Ms. Winnie, Mr. Phuong and Ms Diep ....................................................... 40

7

REFERENCES......................................................................................................... 42

5


FIGURE 1. QUEENFOOD ORGANIZATION CHART ............................................................. 8
FIGURE 2. SALE DEPARTMENT CHART ............................................................................. 9
FIGURE 3. THE CHART COMPARING THE RATES OF GROUPS OF CUSTOMERS ............... 11
FIGURE 4. CAUSE-AND-EFFECT TREE ............................................................................. 16
FIGURE 5 THE SECONDARY CAUSE-EFFECTS MAP FOR PROBLEM SOLVING .................. 25
FIGURE 6 MOST- USED SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS IN VIETNAM COUNT TO
JAN, 2021 ( IMAGE SOURCE: HOOTSUITE & WEARESOCIAL) ................................. 28

6


LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1. TABLE OF THE NUMBER OF AGENTS OF THE BRAND HONEY DROP................ 11
TABLE 2. SALES STATISTICS OF HONEY DROP FROM 2018 - 2020 .................... 12
TABLE 3. WHOLESALE SALES VOLUME BY QUARTER FROM 2018 TO 2020 ................... 12
TABLE 4. MEDIA, MARKETING & ADVERTISING INVESTMENT ...................................... 14
TABLE 5. TABLE COMPARING SALES OF HONEY DROP .................................................. 14
TABLE 6 DISCOUNT RATE BASED ON VALUE OF ORDERS (SOURCE: QF SALE
DEPARTMENT)........................................................................................................... 15
TABLE 7 SCORE OF 3 POTENTIAL CAUSES GIVEN BY QF'BOD ...................................... 26
TABLE 8 CORRESPONDING CONTENT FOR FACEBOOK ....................................................... 30
TABLE 9 APPENDIX A. IN-DEPT INTERVIEW WITH MS. WINNIE ................................ 35
TABLE 10 APPENDIX B. IN-DEPT INTERVIEW WITH MR. PHUONG ............................ 37
TABLE 11 APPENDIX C. IN-DEPT INTERVIEW WITH MS. DIEP ................................... 38
TABLE 12 APPENDIX. D EVALUATION SURVEY OF ADVERTISING ACTIVITIES OF
CUSTOMERS WHO REGULARLY BUY HONEY DROP PRODUCTS ..... ERROR! BOOKMARK
NOT DEFINED.

TABLE 13 APPENDIX E: TRANSCRIPT OF OPEN-END QUESTION ................................. 40
TABLE 14 APPENDIX F: JOINT INTERVIEW ABOUT THE SOLUTION ............................ 41

7


1

COMPANY INTRODUCTION

1.1 Company Overview
Established in 2008, Queen Food is a company specializing in the export, import and
distribution of high quality and healthy foods. Since its establishment up to now, Queen
Food has become the exclusive distributor of a number of premium food brands from many
countries around the world such as Australia, USA, Canada and Spain …
From the desire to create Vietnamese branded products with good quality to consumers and
avoid the risks of problems from imported product lines, from 2013, Queen Food has
researched to create a new product - Honey Drop candy. Queen Food aims and focuses on
building Honey Drop to become the company's main development product line in the
future, not only for the Vietnamese market but also to reach out and export to other
countries.
1.2 Organization structure
The company has a simple organizational structure. The Head of organization is the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) who has the responsibility and authority to direct and give
direction to the company. Queenfood Company organization chart includes around 30
headcounts, which divided to accounting department (01), administrative department (05),
sales department (07), Export & Import Department (04) and warehouse and delivery
department (10) to reporting directly to CEO.

Director

Sale & Marketing
Department

Administration
Department

Accounting
Department

Export & Import
Department

Warehouse &
Delivery
Department

Figure 1. Queenfood Organization Chart
(Sources: A Food Company organization chart)

Queenfood Company is as family scale company, so organization chart is traditional.
Administration Department provides administrative and technical support in the areas of
8


administration works, payroll and legal but not performing compensation and benefit, also
budgeting role. Sales Department takes care both Sales and Marketing functions.
1.3 Sales Department
Sales and Marketing department of Queenfood has 7 headcounts including 1 Sales

Manager, 1 Assistant Sales Manager and 5 Sales Staffs.
In addition, this department is responsible for not only sales but also marketing activities to
promote products. In fact, Sale Manager is mainly concerned with sale, while Sale
Assisstant kum Marketing Manager will be responsible for sales information support and
product marketing activities. Sale representatives includes 5 people, divided into 2 parts:
Online with 2 people and Whole Saler and Retailers with 3 people. Each of them will take
on the responsibility of not only sale task but also marketing as required by their superiors,
which are obliged to report directly to Assistant Sales Manager.

Sale Manager

Sale Assistant

Whole Saler

Commercial

Marketing

Retailers

Online

Figure 2. Sale Department Chart
(Sources: Queen Food Company organization chart)

1.4 Product
Honey Drop is a herbal candy product - a combination of imported Australia honey and
natural herbal essential oils (lemon, lemongrass,…). The product is not only a common
candy, but also has an antiseptic effect and aids of lozenge in some cases such as cough,

sore throat, alertness, etc.
9


Due to the background of importing high quality honey from Australia, the raw materials
of this confection are guaranteed of natural origin and highest quality. Not only investing
in formulas and quality raw materials, Queen Food also invests a lot in the packaging of
the products to suit the target group of customers who are high-end class with income from
medium to high.
Honey Drop Candy has a compact, luxurious and eye-catching design aimed at directing
customers to use it as a gift to customers and relatives. Honey drop's target audience is highend customers, business people, office workers and housewives with stable incomes.
Subjects interested in product lines that are good for health and natural origin.
1.5 Wholesale market segment:
According to Queen Food's statistics in 3 years of selling Honey Drop, customers are
classified and divided into 4 main groups: wholesale, retail, online and other. In particular,
the main sales of Queen Food currently come from the wholesale channel.
The customers of the wholesale group are usually supermarkets, food chains, and high-end
stores. Representatives include supermarket chains Annam Gourmet, Nam An, Coop
Finelife,…. Each orders of this customer group are usually large quantity and high value.
Mr. Phuong [APPENDIX B p.35] - Sales Manager pointed out that:
“The source of wholesale customers is the most important source of customers not
only for the Honey Drop brand but also for many other products of the company.
The reason is that the wholesale customers are usually retailers. Not only bring in
sales every time they order, but they also help us to promote products to consumers
closer”.
According to Ms. Diep [APPENDIX C p.36] - Sale Assistant - in charge of marketing
management said:
“The Honey Drop product is a new product reaching the market, with a modest
capital source for promotional activities, the best way for the product to reach the
target audience soon is to try to expand in more market as possible".

10


Therefore, this analysis focuses on analyzing the customers of the wholesale group in the
Ho Chi Minh City area for the Honey Drop brand.

2018

2019

12%
22%

2020

6%
14%
13%

58%

10%
15%
8%
67%

67%

8%

Đại lý

Khác

Khách lẻ

Online

Đại lý

Khác

Khách lẻ

Online

Đại lý

Khác

Khách lẻ

Online

Figure 3. The chart comparing the rates of groups of customers

2

SYMTOMS

2.1 The number of customers who stop cooperating increases.
To come up with symtoms for this project, the data from the sales statistics tables is
important to makes the analysis clearer. Because it is a new product on the market, many
people do not yet know this product so it cannot reach customers quickly. Based on sales
statistics of sales department in 3 years: 2018 - 2019 - 2020, although the number of agents
increases year by year. However, the number of customer tends to terminate the contract
and do not intend to continue to prolong the cooperation period. This has some risk factors
in the business development and expansion of the product's market.
Table 1. Table of the number of agents of the brand Honey Drop

2018
Wholesale Customer stopped cooperating

2019

N/a

2020
9

32

The old customer continued to cooperate

20

22

21

New wholesale customers

11

31

36

Total

31

53

57

(Source: Queen Food)

11


2.2 Revenue decrease
Due to the characteristics of the confectionery industry, sales often depend on certain times
of the year because of the user demand. The peak times are at the end of the year and the
Lunar New Year (in the first quarter and fourth quarter every year).
Table 2. SALES STATISTICS OF HONEY DROP FROM 2018 - 2020

2018

2019

2020

Wholesale

714,429,924

691,235,790

626,957,648

Others

103,516,172

135,776,000

77,344,000

Retails

264,915,400

142,545,304

144,438,200

Online

152,197,208 64,869,640

Grand Total

96,146,722

1,235,058,704 1,034,426,734 944,886,570

Table 3. Wholesale sales volume by quarter from 2018 to 2020

Q1

2018

2019

237,176,235

219,602,770

2020
198,346,536

Q2

146,045,962

113,698,160

122,477,312

Q3

128,151,612

95,750,092

90,166,200

Q4

203,056,115

262,184768

155,967,600

Total 714,429,924

691,235,790

626,957,648
Source: Queen Food Sale Report

According to the sales statistics in Table 2 and Table 3, sales of Honey Drop to customer
from 2018 to 2020 tend to decrease in not only the high season (Q1 and Q4 of each year)
but also in the low season (Q2 , Q3 of each year).

3 PROBLEMS IDENTIFICATION
3.1 Potential problems
For further analyze the factors, we rely on data of the company, data on sales reports, and

aggregated listings.
12


3.1.1 Potential Problem 1: Failure advertising activities
When launching the product to the market, Queenfood has not identified the importance of
promoting a new brand. Until 2019, Queen Food begin to focus on the media resources
mostly on Honey drop candy products. Queen food invest money to create the TVC,
promotion clip to get the awareness of the target customer but not put this TVC into any
advertising channel (such as TV, social media). It is the reason why the effectiveness of
communication has not brought the desired effect. Beside that, the poor quality and
uncreative idea of the TVC cannot attract the customers. Therefore, the brand awareness of
the consumer to the product is not high so that it could not help to increase the sales during
the promoting activities.
Up to the now, many people approaching the product still do not know any information of
Honey Drop. They have never seen any related promotional information. In addition,
customers who have seen and used products feedback that it is very difficult for them to
find a place where sell the product.
In an interview with Ms. Winnie [APPENDIX A p.34] - Director of Queen Food Company,
she admitted that:
“In the early years of product development (from 2015 to 2018), we only focused on
product research, for Honey Drop to be perfect and achieve the best quality,
especially in terms of packaging form, but not really focus on advertising.
The target audience of Honey Drop products wants to reach high-end customers
with medium to high income. These people are often concerned about their health
and in need of finding a good health care product. Therefore, we pay a lot of
attention to the packaging design of the product”.
Ms Diep [APPENDIX C p.36] - Sale Assistant Manager - Main person in charge of
marketing activities said:
“Before 2018, most Honey Drop candy products were introduced and sold to

familiar customers by the relationships. However, most of them large orders of other
imported products, Honey drop is just the additional product for them to trial sell.
Since 2018, we have started to invest in communication activities. Every year, the
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company spends most of its marketing expenses on these Honey Drop products
instead of other products. However, the sales rate has not met expectations”.
According to theory (1), “producer originated advertising serves to inform innovators of
the existence and value of the new product while word-of-mouth communication by
previous adopters affects imitators”. It means that advertising has played a very important
role in introducing products to consumers from the very first days.
Table 4. Media, Marketing & advertising investment

2018

2019

2020

Honey Drop

842,000,000

1,006,500,000

1,958,760,000

Total investment

1,357,000,000

1,879,000,000

2,875,000,000

%

62%

54%

68%
Source: QueenFood

Table 5. Table comparing sales of Honey Drop
2018
Revenue

2019
Total

%

Revenue

2020
Total

%

Revenue

Total

%

Quarter 1

237,176,235 3,448,573,980 7%

219,602,770 3,038,793,942

7%

198,346,536 13,024,245,838 2%

Quarter 2

146,045,962 1,492,072,098 10%

113,698,160 1,626,915,215

7%

122,477,312 4,905,612,402

2%

Quarter 3

128,151,612 1,516,280,618 8%

95,750,092

2,261,721,136

4%

90,166,200

7,748,586,377

1%

Quarter 4

203,056,115 2,086,304,719 10%

262,184,768 3,744,211,525

7%

155,967,600 8,535,047,719

2%

995,225,231 8,543,231,415 12% 691,235,790 10,671,641,817 6% 626,957,648 34,213,492,336 2%
Source: QueenFood

According to Table 3, the statistics of investment costs in Communication, advertising and
marketing activities, the total investment in Honey Drop accounts for a very high rate
compared to other products - accounting for 50-70% of the total investment. However,
according to Table 4 of statistics on sales of Honey Drop candies, total sales of this product
only account for 2 - 12% of the total sales of all products of the company. This shows that
the investment capital for the advertising activities of Honey Drop products has not brought
effectiveness for sales.

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3.1.2 Potential Problem 2: Low benefit for the Wholeseller customers
The main customers that Queen Food aims to distribute Honey Drop are supermarket
chains, pharmacies, convenience stores and high-end food stores,... Because the product
will easily accessible to target customers in these places. However, in order to enter these
chains, the conditions of cooperation they offer are not easy to achieve. They require the
brand provide them many types of benefits, which are not only financial benefits but also
the product information support for sale and marketing.
With commercial benefits, Queen Food Company offers wholesaler an offer of 10-25%
discount on each order, depending on the quantity and form of payment, and the form of
purchase. This is average compared to other products in the confectionery industry.
However, the discount rate is only the one thing of many requirements of wholesaler
customer. Especially for the new brand as Honey Drop product. They also impose many
other costs (display fee, opening fee, operating fee ...). Combined, the costs may exceed the
product's profit margin. This leads to if the agreement is accepted; the company will not
make a profit during the sales cooperation.
Table 6 Discount Rate based on value of orders (Source: QF Sale Department)
Value /order
< 10,000,000 VND
10,000,000 - 30,000,000 VND

30,000,000 - 100,000,000 VND
>100,000,000 VND

Discount
rate
15%
20%
25%
30%

In addition, as a new product and the communication system has not been strengthened, the
image and marketing marterial still have many shortcomings. Honey Drop products are not
enough to convince customers in product information and promotion. When dealing with
new customers, they often cite unfamiliar products to decide not to cooperate or buy. The
customer is usually a retail chain, choosing a new brand product to work with is a risky
decision. They need time to test the buy ability and impression of customer on the product
before deciding on the cooperation and purchase. However, this will take a lot of

15


management time and effort, so if convincing reasons cannot be given, a partnership
agreement is often not reached.
3.2 Cause-and-effect tree
In summarise, after showing out potential problems, including: Poor advertising activities
Low benefits for the customers. I conduct a depth interviews with Mr. Phuong - Sales
Manager, Ms. Diep - Deputy Sales Manager - manages marketing to get more detailed and
specific information to identify the main problem.

Figure 4. Cause-and-effect tree

3.3 Problem Validation:
In order to sell products to the market, having the affective advertising activities is one of
the most important things. It is the premise for the direction and development of other
activities. Based on the theory of (2), advertising helps a company convey a message and
attract customers' attention. From there, the company's products are easily accessible to
customers. Hussainy (3) state that if the firm do not invest in their promotional activities,
their brand or product cannot be a well-known brand. In addition, Latif (4) also stated that
the primary mission of advertiser is to reach prospective customers and influence their
awareness, attitudes and buying behavior. Because the customers spend a lot of money to
16


keep individual interest in their products, they need to understand what makes potential
customers behave the way they would like. It also appears that advertising may have the
potential to contribute to brand choice among consumers
In addition to the above theory, the interviews with two managers show that they also
realize that marketing in general and advertising activities in particular play an important
role in sales support and persuading customers to purchase. Although, in the past years,
from 2018 to 2020, the company has also made some changes and invested more in
marketing, but due to the unsuitable advertising activities, it has yet to get many results.
Therefore, they believe that the inappropriate activities is a big problem that affects a lot of
effort and wastes their money. Therefore, they willing to improve this situation.
For the problem of low benefits of customer, theory support that keeping existing customers
loyal and interested is much more effective than acquiring new customers (5). Companies
will often want to maintain long-term relationships with their customers in order to gain
more benefits for their organization (6). Companies are increasingly paying more attention
to customer needs and expectations to survive in competitive environments and encounter
rapid changes in market environments, such as the globalization of the economy and
escalating customer expectations (7).

Both of managers also pointed out that it is hard for the company to sastisfy the customer
in terms of commercial interests and prices because currently the applied rate in the
company is the average level of adoption by the industry. The only way Queenfood can
support is provide more marketing marterials and advertising activities to help to attract
more customer. Perhaps, the company can increase the benefits of information and
management to customers after completing the improvement the advertising activities.
From the above theoretical bases and practical information, the main problem identified is
the "Poor advertising activities".

17


4

CAUSE IDENTIFICATION

4.1 Potential Causes:
Unless the core causes of an issue are discovered and addressed, it will continue to exist.
As a result, a review of relevant literature will be conducted in advance to give a framework
for determining potential causes of the Honey Drop product problem at Queenfood. Then,
using primary data acquired at the company, these causes will be investigated
4.2 Potential cause 1: Ineffective media channel
4.2.1 Unrealistic target audience
Target audience refers to the specific group of consumers most likely to want your product
or service and, therefore, the group of people who will see your advertising campaigns. The
target audience can be determined by age, gender, income, location, interests, or a myriad
of other factors.
According to the definition of (9), one of the signs that the target audience has been
identified false is the response to advertising that has not achieved the desired response.
While the company's segment is identified as Honey Drop, products aimed at luxury

customers with high income. However, most of the advertising activities do not reach these
customers, but reach other types of customers. Therefore, the sales effect has not yet
achieved the expected effect.
In fact, groups of customers who love the taste of Honey Drop candy often complain to the
company that it is difficult for them to find and buy the product. The main reason is that
information about the product has not reached potential customers - those who really need
it. Ms. Oanh - a sales person who often attends and meet customers at many events said
that:
“In some events, after inviting customers to try the Honey Drop candy, we alsways
asked a few questions for customers about how they feel about the candy (about the
quality and the packaging). Most of them were very pleased and impressed with the
taste and packaging of Honey Drop. They also did not believe that this product was
18


made in Vietnam. They were surprised to learn that this product had been on the
market for a few years, as they had not seen any advertisement for the product
before.
Moreover, most of customers willing to buy more products to use and to introduce
to many others. However, the most difficult thing is that customers have not found a
place to buy the product, because the product has not yet covered popular retail
distribution channels. Interested customers do not know much about the information
and where they can buy products”.
4.2.2 Improper Use of Passive Media
The notion of “active versus passive media” are the way the media is consumed by the
customer can be active or passive. According theory (10), Newspapers, magazines,
billboards, websites, and direct mail are all examples of passive, or non-intrusive, media.
They get this term because, in order to comprehend the information, the customer must
maintain concentrated attention on things like visuals or intriguing content.
According to the quote from (10) it is important to mention that when advertising is a

combination of both passive and intrusive advertising techniques. Because passive media
requires more focused attention, it is an effective way to reach consumers who are actively
searching for a product or service. However, because of this, passive media can be
ineffective at reaching potential customers before they need to; meaning passive media is
extremely difficult to create new trends.
Meanwhile, Honey Drop products are known as being new to the market and needing
attention (Brand awareness). Therefore, using passive media in this moment makes it
difficult to reach new customers.
During the implementation of previous advertising activities, Honey Drop has paid most of
the cost of advertising activities on passive media such as printing ads in magazines, renting
lcd frame inside the office buildings, building websites about company information and

19


create contents on social media channels (only include text and images but no video or
audio).
According to the Marketing Manager, with the hiring of advertising at the lcd screens in
the buildings, the company initially expected that the advertising would be attractive
enough for those who are often present here. Because the people who often appear here are
usually office workers, businessperson or customers who come to shop. However, when
put into practice, these billboards are not attractive or have the ability to retain customers
for them to find information about the product. After a week of implementation, Queen
Food staff came to observe and interview the staff in the building about their response to
this billboard. However, most of the interviewees answered that they were not aware of the
existence of this advertisement. The rest of them just glance at it, but do not pay much
attention to it, because they think it is not attractive enough and curious for them to dig
deeper.
In addition, 2020 was a difficult year when the COVID pandemic broke out. It affects
almost everything in life and business plans. When there was a blockade order, office

buildings very limited people's access. As a result, the ad's reach to customers is also
affected and reduced. However, the company decided to continue these activities despite
warning signs of inefficiencies due to the lack of alternatives.
4.3 Potential cause 2: Unimpressive advertising appeals
Based on (11) that the advertisement will be a failure, if the advertisement copy is not
properly prepared. The subject matter of advertisement has to be carefully written by the
copywriter. Otherwise, it will not create a good impact on the buyer.
In the study (12), he found out that the topic of an advertisement is advertising appeal.
Advertisers must provide some driving force to the message in order for the audience to
receive it. Appeal is the motivating force behind this. Every commercial appeal reflects an
allure that piques the interest of customers.

20


4.3.1 Lack of effective content creative
Hardman points out that one of the most common problems he sees is the lack of
promotional content in a format that can be effective or less creative. One key insight the
company has found is that more product images in an ad, as opposed to a generic image,
enhances ad effectiveness. What's more, the company's analysis shows that more video ads
and in-story ads will enhance results for many people. In the rapidly changing world of
social media, advertisers should avoid these common mistakes. In addition, keeping up with
rapidly changing trends is essential.
At Queen Food Company, all creative advertising content on social media platforms is
written by Sales and Marketing Department‘s employees. Although they are the people who
know the product and its audience, and they know what content needs to be created and
published. However, due to their lack of expertise and lack of technical application in
writing articles for ads, their articles tend to be inappropriate. Meanwhile, in the stage of
introducing and promoting the product to the public, Honey Drop products need bold and
breakthrough creative ideas, attracting the public's attention towards the product. Ads that

are curious or have trendy content will attract and attract customers more effectively than
articles about product introduction and in-depth analysis.
In addition, because Honey Drop targets high-income customers, the image and content
requirements must be luxurious and classy. However, the staff in the sales and marketing
departments still cannot write product advertising content that meets the above
requirements.
4.3.2 Lack of professional designer
Advertising is the application of techniques and practices to publicizing products or
services for persuading the public to react in a certain way to what is advertised. The key
elements that help us recommend ads include graphics, messages, colors, photos, videos,
and animations. In Advertising, it is most effective to promote products and services when
the visual designs are highlighted while maintaining the relevance and clarity of the

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message. The right images can attract good attention and increase the likelihood that
viewers will buy the product.
Loyalty, interest, and ultimately the buyer's decision to buy products and services are all
influenced by design. According to Tyton Media, 38% of customers will abandon an ad if
its information is not appealing, and 94% of people mention the design as a reason to trust
or refuse to choose. According to a study published by Research Gate, poor and boring
design is especially related to customers quickly rejecting and trusting an advertisement or
a website.
In fact, the image of Honey Drop products in the media is not professional and unaffiliated.
Sales and marketing staff will often divide the work of designing or photographing products
and posting them in the media. These activities are also spontaneous and not according to
any previous plan. Because of their limited ability and knowledge, their designs are often
spontaneous and depend on each person's own taste. As a result, the illustrations for
promotional articles often lack coherence with each other.

However, internal employees are only responsible for simple designs such as illustrations
of articles on social networks Facebook and websites. The designs require high technicality
and expertise, Queen Food Company will hire outside personnel to work part-time. These
people are usually freelance designers. They only collaborate for a short time or on certain
projects. Therefore, when looking at the design overview, it is not possible to find the
connection, synchronization and unity.
4.4 Potential cause 3: Insufficient human resources
The Insufficient human resources is also one of the factors affecting the advertising
activities of Honey Drop products in general and Queen Food in particular. This shortage
of personnel is mainly due to inexperienced staff and shortage of people in the team.

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4.4.1 Understaffed issue
Understaffed means the organization lacks some human resources hence the organization
is not effectively or efficiently implementing its policies in all respects. Insufficient staffing
in an organization increases workload and less supervision (13)
Although research by (14) demonstrates that individuals working in understaffed groups
will experience higher levels of experience, greater work awareness and increased
awareness and skill; leads to higher levels of organizational commitment and job
performance (15). However, this also carries significant risks because of the negative
effects of staff shortages. According to (16) the quality of work is the first thing that suffers
when there is too little work force. Because of fewer employees, each individual's workload
increases and each person has to work faster to handle the workload. This leads to increased
errors and affects the quality of the final work.
As pointed out from the previous sections, the product promotion activities in the early
years were not interested and focused by Queen Food. Therefore, promotional activities are
a small task that sales and marketing staff are required to do. The orientation of the
company's leaders is that the sales staff will learn from the actual work and develop more

skills. However, as product advertising becomes more and more important and becomes a
major part of interest. Advertising activities required there are more tasks so that the staff
in the sales and marketing departments gradually become overloaded. Because they have
too many things to do and have to get it done all at once. This results in the quality and
results of the work being affected.
4.4.2 Inexperienced staff
According to research by (17) it is found that inexperienced employees are often passionate
about work. and tend to work harder. However, these inexperienced employees lack
stability and long-term commitment to the organization. They are willing to quit their jobs
when faced with obstacles and move to companies that offer better opportunities. Because

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of their lack of experience, they also lack the skills and knowledge of the job and are often
not fluent in the tools or software needed to get the job done.
In fact, at Queen Food Company and the staff who operate Honey Drop promotional
activities, the employees have a background as sales people and work very hard. However,
they understand many skills needed in Advertising such as content creation, ideation,
writing, graphic design... Sharing more about this, Mr. Phuong - Business Manager
commented that:
"Most of our employees are very hard-working, young and dynamic. They are
willing to absorb new knowledge and practice skills. However, due to the starting
point of sales staff, so developing other skills takes time for them to acquire and
practice." This can be the long-term direction of the company in developing their
employees. However, seriously, if employees do not have the knowledge and skills
to work in a learning-by-doing situation, it will not be effective in a short time,
especially when advertising is updated and constantly changing today.
With information gathered during interviews, the main issue identified was the
“Advertised to the wrong audience”.

Combined with the theoretical bases, the fish-bone diagram is designed as follows:

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Figure 5 The secondary cause-effects map for problem solving

4.5 Cause validation:
From the previous section, this thesis has outlined three potential causes leading to the
failure of Queen Food's Honey Drop promotional activities. At the same time, we also know
that these factors are mainly responsible for the problem in one way or another. However,
because the human and financial resources that Queen Food have to solve the problem are
very limited and not every company can touch or change the cause, so we need to identify
the root cause - a factor that has the greatest and most rational influence on corrective
action. For this purpose, the following section will use primary data collected from in-depth
interviews with the company's management including:
Ms. Winnie - General Director of the company; Ms. Diep - Marketing Manager and Mr.
Phuong - Sales Manager. Choosing to interview these three leaders to find out the main
cause of the problem because these are the people who know the available resources of the
business and have the ability to make any change decisions. . In addition, they can take a
broad view and assess the severity of the problem, the feasibility and suitability of the
solution when applying the change to the business.
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