“Banh mi cart gives good jobs” campaign is Viec Lam Tot’s official product launch to the public. The campaign primarily targeted blue - collar job seekers, aged between 18 - 34 year old in Ho Chi Minh city, Binh Duong and Dong Nai.

In 2021, people, mostly migrant workers, in Ho Chi Minh city and nearby industrial provinces (Binh Duong and Dong Nai) struggled a lot during a months-long COVID-19 lockdown. Many people lost their jobs and were confined to their rented room amid restrictions and fears of infection. They starved for new job opportunities in order to earn some money to cover their pile-up expenses. This led to an increasing amount of job-finding posts and job search on social media. Then, most of the discussions and concerns circled around their need to have the job fast to bounce back when the situation got better.

When the 4th wave of COVID-19 was at its peak, Ho Chi Minh city, particularly, and nearby industrial provinces tightened restrictions. As the cities were under “ai ở đâu ở yên đó" (“stay where you are") regulation, people could not travel across districts, even leave their homes or go shopping for groceries/medication. Therefore, going to work or having essential food, such as banh mi, on a usual basis seemed a far off possibility which led to viral discussions on social media as people vented about their frustration and crave for regular street food, including banh mi. Then, banh mi was under the limelight on social media as the must-have street food after lockdown because this seemingly day-to-day dish suddenly became so difficult to have.

The image of having a job is usually associated with that of bringing food to the table. The word “breadwinner" in English is the best depiction for this insight since the word describes the person in a family who works to provide the money that the family needs to live on. In Vietnamese, there is also a proverb “Có làm thì mới có ăn" (“You have to work to feed yourself"), so the insight also resonates well with Vietnamese culture. In the 4th wave of COVID-19, many people in major industrial areas fell victim to unprecedented layoffs, including a massive number of blue-collar workers - one of the most vulnerable members of the society.

So, why does Viec Lam Tot choose banh mi and banh mi cart to be the campaign’s key asset? In Vietnam, particularly in Southern provinces, banh mi is the most popular dish as a quick ‘n easy way to start off the day. To many blue-collar workers, banh mi is also typically chosen for breakfast due to its affordable price, so banh mi usually refers to the image of blue-collar workers.

From above-mentioned insights, Viec Lam Tot came up with the strategic approach “CÓ VIỆC NHANH NHƯ ĂN BÁNH MÌ (“GETTING JOBS AS FAST AS EATING BANH MI”) and the brand tagline “Việc Làm Tốt - Chốt làm luôn” (“Get a good job fast”). Translating insights into a campaign that delivered results, the big idea was transforming hundreds of banh mi carts into hundreds of mobility job centers that appeared at every corner of the streets in Ho Chi Minh city. To bring this idea to life, Viec Lam Tot partnered with Ma Hai - one of the best coverage chains of banh mi carts in Ho Chi Minh city. To further focus on the targeted audiences, Viec Lam Tot chose Binh Tan district, Go Vap district, district 12, etc. where many industrial parks, and factories reside as well as many blue-collar workers live.

The big idea was transforming hundreds of banh mi carts into hundreds of mobility job centers that appeared at every corner of the streets in Ho Chi Minh city so that the mass audience could approach and experience the Viec Lam Tot platform. By partnering with Ma Hai - one of the best coverage chains of banh mi carts in Ho Chi Minh city, Viec Lam Tot was able to appear in hundreds of locations on many busy streets. To leverage the campaign awareness, Viec Lam Tot also collaborated with MC Quyen Linh as the main influencer connecting Viec Lam Tot brand with the targeted audiences and encouraging them to use Viec Lam Tot.

“Banh mi carts give good jobs" campaign consisted of a series of consecutive events held over several days all across Ho Chi Minh city and social media to spread awareness. All of the events were under
the same concept of banh mi and job search for blue-collar workers. The campaign started off with the big-stunt activation event revolving around the banh mi carts as mobillity job centers. At the event, the banh mi carts were covered with Viec Lam Tot's branding image, including interface mock-ups, domain name and brand logo, and campaign's key message: “GETTING JOBS AS FAST AS EATING BANH MI'' via on-site POSM, such as standees, banners, banh mi wrapping papers.. In addition, at the banh mi carts, Quyen Linh played as the main host to test and take hands-on experience of the Viec Lam Tot platform, then later introduced and engaged people to the Viec Lam Tot platform through the QR codes printed on the POSM. The concept of the activation event was to create an experiential event in which allowed people to immerse in the experience of job search and job finding on the Viec Lam Tot platform. Participants of the activation event also had the opportunity to join in a minigame hosted by Quyen Linh and named “Việc cho chính mình" (“Get a job for yourself"), adapted from the famous game show “Vượt lên chính mình" (“Overcome all obstacles"). The minigame participants were challenged to find and get jobs on Viec Lam Tot faster than the time of a person eating a banh mi.

After the kick-off event, Viec Lam Tot continued to sustain and expand the level of awareness with other simultaneous activities in the amplifying phase. Namely, a group of PG/PB was devised to distribute Viec Lam Tot's leaflets of the campaign and QR code to people in traditional markets, or localities. If a person logged into the Viec Lam Tot platform and successfully created accounts, they would get a 20.000 VND mobile card to call the recruiters. Viec Lam Tot also collaborated with Quán cơm Nụ cười - a charity kitchen in Ho Chi Minh city - to serve free banh mi and guide the homeless and destitute coming to the kitchen on using the Viec Lam Tot platform. The purposes of these offline activities were to create word-of-mouth discussions and bring them to social media. Moreover, Viec Lam Tot also expected to generate good feelings to people aware about the brand advocacies.

Along with offline activities, creative contents on social media were also generated. In the big-boom phase, videos of Quyen Linh introducing Viec Lam Tot and campaign “Banh mi carts give good jobs” took over social media channels by storm. On Facebook and Youtube, Viec Lam Tot created 3 different versions of Quyen Linh videos, including the full version, the 15-second version and the 6-second version. 3 video versions had different meanings. For the full version, Viec Lam Tot aimed to show the entire course of the activation. For the 15-second version, Viec Lam Tot aimed to show the condensed message of the campaign and leverage the campaign awareness. And for the 6-second version, Viec Lam Tot aimed at running digital performance by showing straight-to-the-point key messages. Besides, there was also a fourth vertical version tailored for TikTok. In the amplifying phase, creative social posts such as “Bí kíp tìm việc" album (“How to get your job" album) and TikTok series “Có việc nhanh, có việc chất" (“Fast and cool ways to get a job”) produced by trending TikTokers.

Applying the offline-to-online model, the campaign brought people's offline experience at banh mi carts to online channels through well rounded internal and external communications. Viec Lam Tot divided the digital plan into 2 phases: big boom and amplifying. In the big boom phase, Viec Lam Tot mostly targeted its main audience: blue-collar job seekers aged from 18 to 34 years of age in Ho Chi Minh city, Binh Duong, and Dong Nai - the top 3 industrial provinces in the South Key Economic Zone region. The objective of this phase was to entice the target audience to the Viec Lam Tot platform by using creative contents on social media. With recapped video of Quyen Linh and banh mi cart activation event at the core, Viec Lam Tot treated it as a PR stunt to maximize awareness on social media and gain people's attention via media publishers and digital solutions. Viec Lam Tot also took over social and digital channels, such as Facebook, Google, Youtube, TikTok and Viec Lam Tot's internal channels, by storm. In this phase, the campaign’s creatives and key message as well as the brand image of Viec Lam Tot were rapidly and widely promoted to approach both new and existing users.

In the amplifying phase, Viec Lam Tot expanded its audience and included all job seekers who were in dire need of having a new job and a fresh start. Therefore, the creative contents and digital targeting on social media also needed to be more inclusive and adapt to the expansion. To target other younger audience with fresh and light-hearted taste, Viec Lam Tot cooperated with hot TikTokers to produce the series “Có việc nhanh, có việc chất" (“Fast and cool ways to get a job”) highlighting how fast and cool to have a job, especially find that job through Viec Lam Tot. On Facebook, we generated creative social posts such as the “Bí kíp tìm việc" album (“How to get your job" album) along with PR articles to reach a more mature audience who already had manual labor jobs and aged above 35 years old. On Youtube, we also created another 15-second video to reach a mass audience. The content of the video was about Viec Lam Tot asking the audience If they were feeling satisfied with their current jobs, and If they wanted to have a fresh start, they could look it up on Viec Lam Tot.

The campaign also achieved fruitful results on social media. The total views across channels (TikTok, Youtube, Facebook) were at 12,8 millions video views. Other social metrics on across channels were also impressive with a total of 100 thousand social interactions, 3,5 thousand mentions, and 2 thousand social shares. Moreover, recorded from social listening, the campaign reached 0.98 sentiment score which nearly reached the maximum 0.99 sentiment score. It is safe to claim that the “Banh mi carts give good jobs" campaign brought a very positive impact to social communities. Compared to the committed KPI, the campaign brought a positive impact to the business. Nearly 1 million users visited the Viec Lam Tot platform in just one and a half months of running the campaign. Through the campaign, the total revenue of Viec Lam Tot lifted up by 20.9%. However, more than just fulfilling the KPI, “Banh mi carts give good jobs" campaign also brought positive contributions to society. More than 1,4 millions job opportunities had been introduced to millions of job seekers who suffered and had their life overturned by the pandemic. Looking from the macro-scale, the campaign had introduced more job opportunities to millions of Vietnamese people and joined hands to recover Vietnam's economy in the aftermath of Covid-19 outbreak.