“The Nomad” is a fortnightly published series where I talk to expat PR and Comms professionals, then delve into the insights which inform and help other people to live or to do business in an intercultural world. If you or someone you know would be happy to share their perspective, please get in touch! I’d love to hear from you.
As part of my series about how we can learn from different cultures to embed them into PR and comms practices to help create positive social impact and overcome communication barriers, I interview Vu-Quan Nguyen-Masse, VP ASEAN Culture & Brand at Vero. Born & trained in France, he has relocated to Vietnam since 2013, consistently working with brands or agencies supporting a strong cultural & creative agenda. Describing himself as an “avid reader”, a “culture commenter” and a “code switcher”, Vu-Quan seeks to bridge the gap between sub-cultures & public, institutional influence.
I met Vu-Quan at the PRCA’s Festival of Culture last year where he passionately shared his views on how to navigate the intercultural working environment when the world is getting smaller, and it’s been my mission since then to get him to be part of The Nomad Season 3.
Being in charge of culture at the ASEAN-based Vero which employs more than 130 consultants in full-service IMC offices in Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Jakarta, and Yangon, along with his living and working experiences in multiple countries, Vu-Quan knows one thing or two about intercultural insights.
We discussed brand strategy, the current landscape of Vietnam, purpose, ethics and more.
How are you doing and what’ve you been up to?
I’m good, thanks! I’m going back to France for a few weeks. We’re expecting a third baby so my wife and kids will stay there. We’ll have parental leave until August and we’ll come back.
How did you get into PR and Comms? How did you discover your true calling in brand strategy?
Interestingly, I could have chosen Comms as a major back in the days but ended up choosing Business. My first brush-up with consulting for brands came interestingly during my entrepreneurial debut. I had started a concept-store in Lyon, France – working with edgy designer brands in the booming menswear scene. Attracting creative audiences and young brands, the store gained a great reputation and press (uncorrelated with sales, unfortunately) – being listed in tier 1 publications of the industry such as Highsnobiety and the Louis Vuitton City Guide, ultimately bringing those brands to ask me spontaneously for creative and strategic counsel. In the later years of the project, I had formally attempted to develop a consulting practice under the store’s umbrella and worked for a handful of up-and-coming brands.
After coming to Vietnam on a fashion marketing stint for a luxury retailer, I met Rice Creative, who offered me my first official agency gig and the chance to meet and work with many founders. The “lecturing/ranting” nature of my academic background and some matching personality traits consolidated the professional direction I was taking. I liked telling my associates that our job was “to be right”, hoping to inject confidence in often self-questioning creatives.
You were born and raised in France and came back to Vietnam a few years ago. What has changed since then? I mean the social, political, and cultural landscape of Vietnam
I’ve been in Vietnam for 9 years this summer, and boy it has changed “too many times” to be able to tell a clear story. I’ve been very interested in the way economic growth would impact the changes in lifestyles. Coming from a generation that was very self-conscious of its evolution (think hipster Millenials commenting on their own lives and the commentary about their lives for the whole 2000-2010s span), I was curious about how Vietnam would not go through the same motions (decay, gentrification) but more likely take a hyper-urban growth such as the one of Korea or Singapore. Condo-life is definitely a major shift in the paradigm of Vietnamese lifestyle and will define the next decades. In that context, I am worried that the collective bonds of families, neighbourhoods will fizzle out and allow for the rise of individualism. Fortunately, current signals I can perceive from young collaborators and friends demonstrate good resilience of collective intelligence.
In the culture and arts scene, observations are more mixed. There is definitely a great new generation of artists and creative emerging, some of those I’ve seen working on their craft since 2014-2015 and are now quite successful and influential. But it feels like creativity and arts are considered in large numbers by the youth as a cosmetic matter rather than a pursuit of purpose. The underground is still quite small but dedicated.
You’ve been recently promoted to VP ASEAN, Culture and Brand? What does it entail? Does it still focus on four cultural pillars at Vero including life, excellence, editorial, and brand, or has it been expanded?
Yes, the role focuses on the same pillars, but also expands slightly into helping our company structure & execute its governance in (also) a progressive way. The major shift though is that we’re aiming to provide these Culture services for clients as well. Many corporate comms briefs nowadays include employee engagement and CSR as mandatories, so we see an opportunity to develop Culture services to reinforce brands structurally, thus allowing further corporate efforts to achieve sustained impact both in company performance and communications.
With your eclectic background in political science, passion for fashion and identity, and endless fascination with pop culture, currently working in Culture and Branding for one of the most respected PR and Comms agencies in ASEAN, how have your background and intercultural insights helped you throughout your career, working with people from different countries?
I would say, in fact, intercultural work is already something that is at the heart of any company, even if they’re located in one country. When you’re trying to solve communication between departments, there’s a lot of cultural work. Imagine having to get people from a factory to talk to a marketing team, and vice versa. That’s intercultural work. They don’t work the same way. They don’t even work the same hours. I think most of the time, it’s about arbitration and about embracing specificities and then being good advocates for what you want to be the common ground. At Vero, there could be a tendency for each office to be its own and what we’re doing is that we do respect the local style. And in fact, our leadership is built in a way that there’s no kind of mixed culture, but we gather insights from local leaders, which means that they will be the ones to embrace new ideas. I think part of it is to keep an open mind, especially when we come from different family units, different cultures and everything.
I think my background is merely a reflection of my upbringing. I was raised hopping through communities, with a very narrow cultural base, which naturally pushed me to code-switch frequently. Having a fragmented culture turned out to be enriching as much as it has been sometimes a barrier professionally. In some industries and in some countries, in particular, companies tend to look for the social reproduction of the profiles they employ.
With time, I’ve learned the ability to objectify interactions enough to enter any collaboration with an open mind and read my interlocutors with context. It’s one thing I usually share with juniors: take everything and everyone with context.
One of the most prominent aspects that I’ve noticed when it comes to building a brand is the use of the word “purpose” which is highly commended; however, I’ve seen quite a few companies lose sight of their purposes. As a consultant, what’s your take on this? Has “purpose” become a loosely used word, especially in the PR and comms landscape?
Purpose is used to share a horizon, a desire among people, however, it’s important to show intent and action which can lead to the realisation of that purpose. Brands do have the power to take those actions and communicate about them. In PR as well, we can aim to act according to the larger necessities of the moment. If you want to BS-test companies, you have to look for intents and actions. If there’s no intent to act, then you know, it’s just a next poster. I think the intent defines the business, not the purpose.
You mentioned in an article that “businesses often prioritise securing lucrative deals regardless of whether they are a culture match” but I should perhaps add “regardless of their ethical standpoints” (PR for fossil fuels giants – looking at you!) and Vero has done an impressive job in choosing its clientele. Values have evolved post-COVID-19 and the ethical standing of organisations now plays a big part. Where do you see we’re heading with ethics in PR and Comms?
Ethics is a very neutral, high-level word. I think it’s kind of where the company stands. Vero actually can define itself as a progressive company, and I think progressive says it. Saying being ethical is also like a promise that is bound to be broken, but I think progressive means you’ll improve over time. We’re not perfect and we keep working on taking the right actions there. The purpose is to become better. In the same line of comment, ethics can provide a framework, but ultimately brand activism will be required as evidence of those ethics.
Actions can be taken internally as well as externally, at every part of the chain of value (Porter), to make business impactful (and profitable). I’m looking at the market and businesses can’t afford not to be activists right now. I think people think ethics nowadays is about being concerned. If your agenda is to come up with the questions that don’t matter then the questions that do matter will never get through.
What are your predictions for the agency landscape in 2022?
The resurgence of influence and PR as a strategic core of communication will be central to public affairs and consumer comms altogether. With critical long-term stakes looming over everyone (yes, this is a paraphrase for climate change), the power of business-driven advocacy will be critical to ensure sustainable development. Besides my more concerned and pessimistic comments, there are signals that businesses and their leaders are taking the crisis seriously and reshaping their business as well as the consumer landscape accordingly. However, it’s interesting to observe that they are not very visible yet.
Can you elaborate on the trainee program at Vero? Do you have any advice on how to attract and retain employees?
We just closed on applications last night and received double the number of applicants from last year. I think the reason is there’s a lot of work available and a lot of people are looking for jobs. What made our program relevant was that this time we customised the brief to each position, which we didn’t do the previous time. This time, it’s more customised, which kind of gives young applicants also more insight into who they could become. They know digital and social but we’ll have to redirect some candidates and might say to them that they maybe should take a stab at PR as it’s as modern and as relevant as it is right now, if not more. We have more publications and they’re more diversified. It’s more modern in terms of content and formats, etc, so there’s going to be more opportunities. We’re still in the first few years though.
We have a program which we just launched last month. It is not directly tied to mental health issues, but it helps to refine the way people collaborate. It’s basically a buddy system and not the mentorship. You don’t want people to have to look out for a role model, we wanted more of a peer-to-peer connection. It’s called Pro Dates where now you can select someone from the company and ask them out for coffee. I’m using this as an example to talk about mental health because I think mental health is an individual thing, but it’s also a collective one. Most of the time people talk together about tasks, or about lunch. We wanted them to be able to take a little bit of a step back and kind of assess their practices, because if you don’t do that, basically, the only times we talk about how you work is when you’re blaming someone. “Did you do this? It doesn’t work for me like that”, and then usually it’s too late. When you’re in a rush, no one’s happy. By making this a more casual appointment, people learn from each other. We had our first testimonial coming back from someone saying “Oh, I went into this being asked by the other person and being asked about. It’s surprising because I ended up learning some new tricks and things”
