Welcome to another episode of MAD. Our guest today is Hà Chu. Hà Chu is a marketing specialist and founder of COOKED. A food and beverage business school. Before we begin. Can you tell us more about yourself?. Hi everyone Hi Tuân. Thank you for having meWelcome to another episode of MAD. Our guest today is Hà Chu. Hà Chu is a marketing specialist and founder of COOKED. A food and beverage business school. Before we begin. Can you tell us more about yourself?. Hi everyone Hi Tuân. Thank you for having me today. I’m a marketing specialist like Tuân has introduced. I have around 10 year experience. in F&B, especially in marketing. Sorry, let me say that again. I have around 10 year of experience in marketing, specializing F&B. I hope I can share more about my story to everyone. Thank you for coming to the show. Let’s talk about your school. If I’m a student, what can I learn?. You will learn a lot about marketing. and business, too, in a realistic setting. I founded the school at the time when. I saw that my clients had the need to learn and do marketing. But the knowledge they have was similar to what I had when I just graduated.
It was very bythe-book. So I believe my course can. teach people on how to have a marketing plan. which sounds simple, but has to be realistic and approachable. My goal is when you step out of any course at COOKED,. you get 1020% better than you originally were. You have a realistic knowledge base. That’s when I succeed. Tuyệt. After many courses you have taught,. what are the mistakes people make. even after they’ve learnt the on the field knowledge?. What’s the gap between what they learn. and the reality they apply on?. Is there a gap?. Yeah, there will always be that gap. That’s one of the challenging parts. I like COOKED in that sense. Because when I teach marketing and business. you don’t have a fixed formula. Because the society keeps on changing. Client, environment, market They change. Therefore, the gap is always there And it evolves over time.
When things change, you have to change to adapt. What I see more is. when they apply the knowledge to real life situations. how long will it takes for the knowledge to stand wrong?. Even though they don’t have any problem with that. My biggest job, maybe, is to foresee when. will the knowledge I’m teaching goes out of date. and I have to adjust it before hand. So when they apply it, it stays true to its function. For example, I started COOKED 3 years ago. 3 years ago, from a basic knowledge. People have to have social media. But I would focus on how people can build a good Facebook Page. After time, clearly we can see that we don’t need that Facebook Page. We only need it for paid promotions. After time, we have to evolve Instagram would be the main page. or to other brands, it might be TikTok, YouTube. That’s what we need to foresee.
When the knowledge doesn’t apply anymore?. And we adjust. Aside from things that are out of our control. Like the change from Facebook to TikTok, to Instagram, or whatever. Those are out of our control. Are there any mistakes people make that are in our control?. Like when you teach them to build this image. but they apply it differently. Do you see any pattern?. I don’t know if I can say it’s a mistake. But from my observation, there are two problem that people tend to make. First, when you lack real life experience. This is what I see clearly. For example, you don’t interact with any other than your circle,. than there’s a high chance that your definition of ‘cool’. depends on how your friends define what ‘cool’ is. But when you do business. you can see that the sample size is way bigger than that. You have to interact with diverse groups.
Have more experience. Then your horizon will expand. And from that, you definition on ‘cool’. I don’t dare to say it would be more correct but it would be more suitable to the mass. When you do business, you have to steer to what your consumer wants. The way that my students can apply what they learn. it depends on their horizon. To apply what they learn in class is to do something cool and modern. then their definition on ‘cool’ is this. and that will determine the gap between brands of my students. After you have more experience. And your horizon is expanded. Then the way you apply your knowledge would be much better. One more mistake is. In marketing,. the brands I target are boutique brands. the owner is the one who does the marketing or a few employees. When the scale is small. There are marketing activities ask for your talent.
For instance, copywrite You need quite a talent for that. Or the ability to visualize, conceptualize. You have to start with what talent you have. Through time, if you invest in them. Invest in the image. or in the writing skills. Obviously, it will get better. But in a boutique brand scene. when one person has to do all. You wouldn’t have time to invest in those other thing. Therefore, the quality still depends on the talent that you have. That’s the thing I’m trying to work on. How to help people grow better. with a limited talent. What about culinary talent?. You work in F&B. You want to open a restaurant. Do you need to know how to cook, or how to make drinks, in order to have successful F&B?. It’s good to have But it’s not required. We accept both talent and efforts. But in eating, in taste buds,. I don’t know why people are very confident.
Like when you eat something nice. you think it’s delicious. and you think you can sell it. But to my experience, that’s the wrongest thing people can trust in. Because taste buds are what you have to train to have them. Through times, you will see that not everything you deemed to be good is good. It goes back to the horizon story. When you have tasted though many different flavors. You have experiences. Then you can reevaluate. the dish you are eating in front of you. To me, training the taste buds is a crucial step. and you have to take it seriously. Personally, it’s hard work. You have to focus when you eat. You have to train your taste buds to be better activiely. To me, that’s the most important. Knowing how to cook or make drinks. are things that are nice to have. If you know, then it’s good for you. But if you don’t, then it’s still fine.
The more important thing is to train your taste buds. And surprisingly, I don’t see people to emphasize on. and they tend to depend on their talent. You said eating is personal. It’s like their mother is a good cook. then they think everyone will enjoy too. Yeah, I have this example. No mother has the same sweet and sour pork ribs recipe. Any mom will be one with the best recipe. This is a question in many people in this industry heads. How can a F&B business survive through this COVID pandemic?. This question comes from an audience. I don’t know if you and the audience want me to be completely frank. It’s okay, just say it. I think people will know I think they can. Yeah. To survive COVID time. It’s quite late to answer this question. To survive, you have to have the power even before that. In this COVID time, I see it as a natural selection.
We all have to close. And if you don’t have enough power you don’t have enough antibiotics. then this is when you need to quit this market. This is not when I tell them to try more. Because for brands with power. I call them antibiotics. Then the expectation from the consumer is easy to see. Even they can see the signal clearly. For brands to survive,. it depends on the power you have before. and this is the time to test the endurance. I try to avoid this question. Because I don’t see what you can do now. This is the time you wait. for things to go back to normal and decide to come back to the market. So should we come back to the market? After COVID. After the lockdown. It will depend on some criteria to judge. The reaction from the client is one of the big ones I will judge. Do they miss us?. Do they expect us to come back?.
When we give them some signal how do they react?. That’s from a marketing stand point. Internally, we have other measures to judge the situation. and how much cash flow you have. how long you can run your business. until it can run smoothly like before again. Whether you need to cut down staff. and does the cut affect on the customer experience?. The decision to come back. relies 70% on the internal strength. and the ability to sustain the brand. the 30% bases on the market needs. From my marketing perspective. brands that have strong endurance. they have good brand love. in this time, their image pops. Like in recent days, I don’t know how about your Facebook, but mine. Everyone drink milk tea. Everyone eat KFC. Even though there are many small businesses. but people still go back to their old habit. or brands they remember Same to me.
I immediately ask people to go to Starbucks with me. Although my ability to make coffee is good enough too. Brands that have brand love. We can immediately see. If your brand has to have discount, promotions. to attract customers again. to enter the market again like new. then I think it a signal you need to consider. whether or not to come back. Because maybe you don’t have to. Maybe you need to consider other options. Before and during COVID, there’s a trend. called ghost kitchen. Are you familiar with ghost kitchen?. Yeah I am. Businesses like ghost kitchen. They don’t have a physical store. But they do delivery. Do they need to invest in F&B branding?. Or when this trend takes off. everyone don’t need F&B branding. I think otherwise. Once you do ghost kitchen, you have to invest more in F&B branding. Because you lose one important status point.
The physical point. When they are in your space, that when they feel your brand the most. We both understand in this industry. When we eat out, the buy food is only 50% or less. the other 50 is we buy the experience the environment, the feelings. When you do ghost kitchen, you lose those physical points. Personally, investing in F&B branding is even more important now. When you are the only one on the market. then yeah okay maybe you don’t have to. But ghost kitchen is cheap, fast, and simple. Instead of having 10 competitors with pretty venue like you. Now you have 1,000 competitors with the same quality as you. Then investing in F&B branding is more important now. Do you think ghost kitchen will get popular in Vietnam?. Because we have the culture of hanging out, eating out. In the U.S., it’s popular because they have to drive.
They have to tip. Do you think it will popular here?. I think it’s already popular. and it will become more and more popular. because our customers have 2year training on how to order food home. They have more habit. They perceive it as normal. They enjoy it more. Ghost kitchen has always been here. maybe at an early stage. as online kitchen we see. But after the 2year training of ordering food home. they know it can be good, it varies. It’s a good foundation for ghost kitchen to expand and develop. But on the how indepth, it needs time. Because in this first stage of ghost kitchen the ghost kitchens will be basic. Meaning that they have low setup cost. They have basic products. They want to try to enter the F&B market. so you enter through ghost kitchen. so the testing cost will be low. After this booming stage.
When all these basic businesses open and collapse. Then comes the time for ghost kitchen to grow more complicated. more color, more diverse. Students that come to your school. how many of them open bar, open coffee shop,. open resstaurant, open ghost kitchen. I don’t know if there’s any other type. They open restaurant. open coffee shop. oh and bakery too. Bakery is one of.. Oh no. Your competitor. Open bar. and ghost kitchen. The least are ones to open bar. Because bar, nightlife is a quite different path. and you have to do marketing in a different way too. So my sschool doesn’t serve that need as well as other needs. The large amount will open restaurant and coffee shop. I see why they come to my course. Because these are the most competitive markets. but at the same time, have the most chances to make difference.
Interesting enough, about around a year now. my students that open ghost kitchen have increase. comparing to 2 years ago. There are bakeries. Bakery is in its own league. It’s never too many or too low. What do you think about. greenwashing branding?. Greenwashing. Like brands say that they change their straws to bamboo straws. and that’s how they contribute to the environment. What do you think about this trend?. This question is from Zoey. I thought about this the other day. I think it’s hard for brand owners. for them to actually make contribution. For example, we only have limited options on the market. Plastic straws, paper straws, bamboo straws. inox straws. But in operating, I think you know more than me. In operation, to use ecofriendly products. then it’s harder to operate. with the amount of water you use to wash and make sure the straws are sanitized.
What if that harms the environment?. Ecofriendly is a good trend. I think brands try to be ecofriendly. I understand why they cannot get to the level of ecofriendly like they wish. For brands that focus on greenwashing. I think they should not do that. But there are good initiative on the market. like Bakes Bakes surprises me this year. when you guys make the aluminum can. I don’t know the idea behind that But I love that you use the can. Because In Mid Autumn Festival, people gift mooncakes a lot. It equals the same amount of trash. You may eat one piece But you gift others boxes. When you use paper and plastic for the mooncake packaging. I cannot imagine how much material that end in wasteland. When you use the can, it’ cool. I want to ask you about the idea Is it for protecting the environment. It’s not for protecting the environment.
But for people to have something of Bakes in their cabinets. However, they paid a huge price It’s much more expensive than regular paper box. Oh yeah. I think it’s something most brands face. I think anyone has the need to protect the environment. But people will stop at the sstep you said. They told me that the fee was 5 times more. They didn’t have the budget. I think it’s hard to do too. when you are in a small scale. I think Bakes is brave. to follow that path. I like. We have another option It’s to public to the community. that the packaging will change and are you willing to pay VND56,000 more. for each, to have an ecofriendly packaging?. When you give them that option. I don’t know how many will be willing to pay more. to have an ecofriendly packaging. We have to ask back to the customer. Are you willing to?.
Are you willing to?. Definitely, I’m always ready for that. I think it’s hard for you. Because for brand owner. you have to prepare the inventory. To estimate the amount of people willing and not willing to. It’s a tricky riddle. I talk a lot about this with my students. I see that each of them try a little bit further. They have to figure out the inventory. Everyone want to try a bit more. When I listen to that journey, I understand that. the protecting the environment journey is a hard journey. I appreciate when they try a bit more. and I understand it’s hard to reach the goal. I hope that the packaging providers. when the quantity increases, the price would drop. the products would be popularized. It will get better through time. I agree. I think it depends on all of our decision at the same time. then the providers would reach the quantity needed to give us a reasonable price.
I said ‘ash straws’. There’s no such thing. It’s bamboo straws. Yeah bamboo straws. I will list out the things F&B business owner has to consider. Can you rank them from most important to least important?. The first one. Investing in Kitchen. personnel in the kitchen. cook, something like that. Investing in Front of house . service, manager. Investing in Interior design. interior design, space. Investing in Branding. logo, packaging. Investing in Communication, like social media. 5 of them. Can you rank them from most important to least important. Don’t say that they are all important. I agree but… I can rank some of them. From my point of view. I still have to have disclaimer. this will depend on brands. If it’s coffee. then branding and interior is important. They go handin-hand. I think to be fair. I always believe in investing in the product.
Meaning investing in kitchen. Investing in the people that make the product. and the space to create the product. or the equipment. I place my belief in investing in products. The others are the follow up. That’s why I said I needed disclaimer. Because when you go to a coffee shop. The space is an important product. When the brand is becoming more highend. Then the staff FOH becomes important. The only one element that I struggle to rank is. the Branding. I think to to all others. you need Branding Branding is like a foundation. so it can link other elements. After you go all that stuffs. you can invest the least in Communication. To me, that’s the least important Although that’s what I do. The others create a brand value. So it depends on the business. Kitchen, FOH, Interior design, Branding. They are important.
Communication is the last. Yes, I believe so. If the communication is good. When you walk into the space. you can feel the thing the owner wants to communicate. The Communication. It will become more and more important through time. Because the initial message is easy to receive if you do it well. After the brand is hot and trendy. how you make people wanting to come back to your brand. The hot and trendy is easy to create. You only need to invest lots of money or effots into it. You will flooded with customer in the first few months. But how can you maintain it?. I dont focus much on how to make good communication at the beginning. Because you only need to nail the others. But after time, the Communication becomes more important. What’s the role of personal branding?. Does the owner need to be known along with the business?.
Nice, I receive this question a lot from my students. Many ask me do they need to get famous?. I saw the other famous girl doing online shop. She sells fast. I think it’s a valid question. However, it depends on how ambitious you are with your brand. If you have big ambitious with your brand. than you won’t depend much on the personal branding. Because the brand will eventually grow bigger than the personal branding. If you want to use the personal branding to build your brand. The amount of work are the same. It’s the same hard work to build the personal brand. and the business brand. I think it depends on the ambition. If they don’t have much ambition. they want it to grow to the same as the personal brand. then it’s okay, you can reply on it. But if you want it to grow bigger. way bigger. then you have to focus on building it from the beginning.
I remember The Coffee House story. I know Ninh of The Coffee House. I follow his journey. But when The Coffee House is big and appears everywhere. It has amounts of outlets. then you see that no matter how strong the personal branding is. It cannot surpass the brand. And if you keep on stick the brand to that person. Then it’s dragging the brand down. It depends on the scale. In a small scale, personal branding is an advantage. Or you just start the brand, personal branding is good for the brand. It helps people to define the brand image faster. But it has the expiration date. One audience asks you. How to stepby-step build a personal brand?. I thought about htat. How to build a personal branding guideline. But I haven’t succeeded in that. I cannot share. I can think for myself or some around me. Okay how I build my own personal branding.
It depends a lot on what I have. Each person has some points that you use to build personal brand. The first thing, I think, we need to do. you have to clean up your person. You have different sides inside you. Each person is a universe. But when you want to commercialize it. to make it your personal branding. You have to clean the universe up. And pick out some element that. You want to focus those and want to introduce those to people. I think problem people face when they do personal branding. is that they think they are interesting when they show different sides of them. I know how to play guitar. and how to do business, to speak in a lot of languages. and I’m indie too. I hang around in my circle. As a person, as a friend. I admit those elements create an interesting person. But does that mixture create a good personal brand? I’m not sure.
To make a personal branding to be interesting then it has to be clean. It has to be easy to remember It has to be special. I don’t know the whole guideline. But the first tep is to clean up yourself. And pick out elements you want to focus. Focus around it to build your personal branding. Don’t try to show all of you at once. What’s your personal brand?. I build my personal brand around my work. My personal brand is F&B marketing. I think the different element here is F&B. Most people who do marketing like me They don’t stick to one field. Especially, at the timie when I decided to stick with F&B. I was sure that no one had done marketing in only one field. People tend to work for agency. do marketing for many brands. My personal brand, from the start, I guide it to my work. Because I don’t want to involve my personal life in this.
And to make my work more significant. I stick it with a particular field. And go deep into it. It’s a clear decision. I know that I have a lot to offer. I have other interesting stuffs to share about. But those are things that I decided that. they are not enough or not special enough. or confuse people. So I will keep those to people close to me. I just focus on the important one. Aside Hà Chu the marketing specialist in F&B. What other Hà Chu do we have?. You mean in this universe?. Yeah in your universe. You brand yourself to be Hà Chu marketing specialist F&B. But what are other Hà Chus?. There is the Hà Chu that my friends they see a lot. That’s the indie Hà Chu. I like indie music, films, images. I still listen to music I listened when I was 1718 year old. when indie artists did covers. I’m still that old me.
What other Hà Chu?. Recently, I focus on exploring myself. I’m always interested in that. But recently, I focus more in one aspect That’s meditating. My friends said I was like people in the pyramid scheme. I tell people to meditate whenever I meet them. If they ask me anything, I’ll tell them to meditate. Meditate to find the answer. I’m serious about this. I’m serious on trying to live a happy life. Understanding myself more. It’s a big goal of mine. If you know me personally. You know it’s a vivid Hà Chu. I don’t care much about the money or my career. I don’t wish for big things. I don’t wish for a lot of money. I focus on how to have a happy life. Personally, it’s my trademark. But it’s not a thing I want to brand. I just mention it sometimes. In your F&B marketing journey. Have you ever thought you have gone onto a wrong path?.
Careerwise Of course. Yes I do. It was when I founded COOKED. It was when I did marketing for big brands. I got bored after awhile. When I did plans for them, I got to have big budgets. I got to have more power. But creatively speaking, you don’t have much. When you do F&B for big brands. You know their products cannot be complicated. It has to be simple in order to be duplicated. Recently, I admire how 4P’s grow. They expand their brand But the products still maintain their depth. When I was bored with F&B marketing. Their products were limited. So I could not be too creative. The more you try, the more you get lost. That was when I was bored. I thought that I went on a wrong path. Because before F&B marketing I had two options. I thought I would focus on one. I picked between F&B and Fashion. Because I already had some experience in fashion And I also like fashion.
But I chose F&B. I regretted. So I founded COOKED. Because I thought that I would not continue this F&B career. I would not do it anymore. But at the time, I didn’t know what to do next. I still had many F&B marketing knowledge. I thought that I wouldn’t use it anymore. The problem of those knowledge is. they will expire. You won’t be able to use it. So I opened COOKED as a short learning course. And I thought it would only last about 34 courses. Until the knowledge I have expires. That should to be my end game. But lucky for me, when I did COOKED I was inspired a lot. by my students. by people with different F&B experience. that want to make changes. and they inspired me. You and your fiance did that to me. Because when I create COOKED program. I noticed Bakes more. Before that, I knew but I didn’t care much. Bakes has an image that I love.
It’s lively. It’s vivid and special. It’s not too bakery. It’s also not too.. all over the place. Brands like Bakes in that time. gave me motivation to do F&B. But I decided I would not do for big chains. I only do for boutique brands. I feel like in that scale I can manage the experience that I want. Right? Yeah. Do you want to open a F&B business?. I don’t I never have that wish. Why?. I want to help people reach their dreams. I don’t have the dream of becoming an owner. Me being COOKED’s owner is something I don’t really want to. But yeah, that’s the situation. In our industry or in your class. Are there boutique F&B brand owners. that you think they are excellent. and me and the audience should take a look?. There are a lot. But to say it now, I don’t think it’s fair for people that was my student long time ago.
Don’t need to be in your class Any brand that you like. On the top of my head, I’ll recommend Ngoặm. It’s a burger brand in Hanoi. They are super interesting. It’s a brand that makes me want to research more about them at first glance. Because they sell burgers. a very modern product. but it has a lot of Hanoi essence, cultural essence. And the way that they combined the burgers with elements of cultural traditions is very smooth. very beautiful, very special. In a branding angle, a customer experience angle. It is an experience that I have not felt in a long time, a one of a kind experience. And when I dig deeper into the brand. I know that the owner of the brand, the brand’s head chef. Firstly, is very young. Secondly, he used to work for a Michelin star restaurant. and went back to Vietnam and decided to create a brand.
That are exotic, that are unique. and even are sarcastic in it. I like that. I really like the fact that when a person obviously has a lot of potential. but doesn’t take himself too seriously. Still let himself have fun, still let us experience the brands and products. It’s a brand that I’m very impressed from the inside and out.. Besides the things that we talk about today. Do you have any other topics that I haven’t mentioned that you think the audience should know talk about?. To be exact, I think that there will be questions that I think if everyone cares about F&B. we should answer together. because I myself am not too confident that I will have a good answer to. The most important question to me is the question about taste. How do we develop good taste. to me, is a thing that I gradually think that it shouldn’t depend on aptitude.
But it should have a journey. The second thing is what I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is. how do we develop a brand that really has values. not only with the customer but with society as well. To create an F&B brand that is normal. meaning that the products are normal, experience are normal. like we open a house. and we want to do something with it. it’s a thing that doesn’t have responsibility with society. when in fact we create a lot of garbage, we create a lot of waste. for an average value. Like my own desire, I really hope that. brands entering F&B will lessen. The F&B industry is not a trend anymore. and the people that enter this industry will have larger and higher barriers. so that whoever comes in will bring real values. to me it’s a thing that is worth thinking about. discussing to listen to everyone’s opinion.
That’s the thing I desire, to listen to everyone’s opinion In fact I came today because I want to ask you about that What do you think about what it means to be a valuable F&B brand? Before when you talk about taste, it’s not just taste buds right? Taste about design, taste about everything in general right? Yeah yeah yeah, it’s about taste in general. But I also focus on taste in particular Both are very important I want to explain further about the brand values about the F&B brand values What I want to say here is Brand has external values for the consumer to see Those are the products, etc.
But I mean that the brand also needs internal values. for the people in the backstage. When you have both of that then you can grow sustainably. If you only care of what the consumer thinks. whether you are cool you are good. But at the back, you are bad. Then the brand cannot go far. For example, 4P’s. Pizza 4P’s brings value to their customer. they came for good food at a reasonable price. and 4P’s products are environmentally friendly. But for example, we don’t know what value does 4P’s bring to their employees. or what values does 4P’s bring to their suppliers. therefore to me when we talk about value it’s broader than just society. So that is my point of view about bringing value to a brand. Yeah, very nice. I rarely think about values this broad. I have to put this in one of the better answers. Yeah because we usually will capture very simple values.
Ecofriendly. Bringing Vietnamese cuisine to a higher level. We tend to forget the people at the back. Who’s the cook?. Who works in the kitchen? Are they treated properly?. When COVID hits, will their salary be cut off?. All of those, to me, are values of the brand. Yeah, totally agree. This is a big problem. We can discuss more over a cup of coffee. Thank you for coming to the show. I learned a lot. I think the audience learn a lot too. Before leaving, do you want to share anything?. Thank you for having me today. Hanoi is slowly getting back to normal. Things are going back to business. I can see F&B brands are reviving. I hope Saigon will soon have this same joy. I hope everyone health and meet you after COVID is over. Thank you Hà Thank you all for listening. I hope you learn something over Hà’s F&B marketing journey.
https://youtu.be/qK5_aw3TyMEWelcome to another episode of MAD. Our guest today is Hà Chu. Hà Chu is a marketing specialist and founder of COOKED. A food and beverage business school. Before we begin. Can you tell us more about yourself?. Hi everyone Hi Tuân. Thank you for having me
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