1.

Introduction

Boon Rawd Brewery is the first brewery to establish a brewery by Phraya Bhirom Bhakdi
with an initial registered capital of 600,000 baht. With initial potential, Boon Rawd Brewery
produces only 20 million liters per year. Over 85 years of experience in the brewing industry,
the company's main products are beer, drinking water in order to meet the consumer demand
of customers. The company has main beer products such as Singha beer, Leo beer, Super
Leo, Mittweida.

Leo Beer is one of the most prominent beers, occupying 60% of Thailand's beer market,
followed by Chang 22% and Singha 7%. With a good mix of ingredients and age, Leo Beer
receives a lot of positive feedback from retailers. Leo Beer is mainly exported to the countries
of Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, European countries and Middle East. In recent years,
Leo Beer has entered the Vietnamese market vigorously and became a favorite drink of
Vietnamese people.

The market of Vietnam has micro environment and macro environment. This helps analyze
the marketing strategy of Leo Beer in the market of Vietnam.

Natural environment- The climate of Vietnam is tropical, hot and humid, summer
temperatures are extremely high leading to the body heat so beer is used to regulate the body
during summer days. However, because of this type of tropical weather, the product is easily
damaged, must be carefully stored and packaged.

Socio-cultural environment- The society is growing, Vietnamese people tend to prefer foreign
goods to furniture. They often use beer at parties, weddings and meetings, etc. In addition to
wine, beer is very popular because of the ease of drinking and refreshment.

Customers - This is the motivation to create innovative products, customers are always a
source of fixed income of Leo Beer, but today with the demand, customers always expect the
products are superior and deserve with what they desire. With its marketing strategy, Leo
Beer is stepping up its mass-market offerings.

Staff - Professional staff, experienced and well trained, responsible in the work. That helped
Leo Beer rise to become a prestigious brand in the world.
 2. CURRENT STRATEGY
2.1.SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis (or SWOT matrix) is a strategic planning technique used to help a person or
organization identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to
business competition or project planning.It is intended to specify the objectives of the
business venture or project and identify the internal and external factors that are favorable
and unfavorable to achieving those objectives. Users of a SWOT analysis often ask and
answer questions to generate meaningful information for each category to make the tool
useful and identify their competitive advantage.

2.1.1. Strengths

Vietnam is one of the leading countries in terms of beer consumption in Southeast Asia,
accounting for 98% of the beer market share, ranking among the top 20 to 25 countries
consuming alcohol in the world. , average consumption of one year of Vietnamese people is
30-32 liters per year. The distribution of alcoholic beverages in Vietnam is as follows: In
Hanoi and the mountains and the Red River Delta consumption of 35% of beer in the
country, the Central region accounts for 10% , the Mekong Delta Delta and Ho Chi Minh
City consume 55% (according to UNIDO Country in Vietnam, Economic Zone in the
ASEAN, 2015).

Vietnam has a stable political system, less violence and demonstrations. The management
system is not really tight and tight but it has many gaps creating opportunities for foreign
manufacturers and investors. After Vietnam's accession to the WTO, many preferential
policies such as the import and export taxes will reduce 80% to 65% and reduce it to 35%
over the next 5 years. Joining the WTO forces the government to change certain protection
taxes. Vietnam will apply the excise tax on alcoholic beverage products, however this is not
high and leads to strong competition among companies in the alcoholic beverage industry.

Technology - Beer is a great industry and has grown from a very old age, it is often produced
by transnational companies, beer is often produced from a variety of materials such as barley,
There are also potatoes, sugar cane, ... Leo Beer brings a variety of modern machinery to the
production process such as cooling system, waste water treatment technology.
 2.1.2. Weakness

Natural environment- Vietnam is hot, humid rain, tropical climate and the demand for
drinking water is also very high, and especially beer is always the number 1 on hot days.

However, when Leo Beer imported into Vietnam, it should be noted that because of the
tropical weather, brewing machines and equipment must be tropicalized, changing according
to the natural environment of Vietnam, beer products must be packaged and stored carefully
to prevent damage.

With such competitors, Leo Beer must have a unique and unique marketing strategy to
penetrate deeply into the Vietnamese market without being eliminated. With plans from 5-10
more Leo Beer will cover the entire Vietnam, it needs to improve themselves more.

The scale of production is small, when it comes to Vietnam Beer Leo must be very difficult
to penetrate deeply into this market. Although Vietnam's current alcohol import tax rate has
fallen sharply in comparison with previous years, it is still difficult for retailers because of the
expensive transportation costs and other additional costs. .

2.1.3. Opportunities

Vietnam currently has around 97 million people, 85% of whom are under the age of 40,
which creates a large field of beer consumption for producers. Moreover, most of them prefer
to use foreign goods, which are influenced by the European trend which leads to the
consumption of alcohol. In addition to the trend of urban sprawl, the rich will have profligate
interests and beer is indispensable in their fun.

In the period 2016-2020, Vietnam's economic growth rate tends to increase, so the living
standard and income per capita of the Vietnamese people also increase and of course the
demand for Beers and liquors also increased significantly. The economic growth of 2016-
2020 is expected to increase to 6.5% or 7%, GDP per capita is estimated at 53.5 million
VND, equivalent to 2.385 USD, up 170 USD over 2016. It helps boost demand for alcoholic
beverages, especially premium beers and imported beers such as Leo Beer. Vietnam beer
consumption is expected to grow at 14-15% per year. Moreover, the distribution and retail
market in Vietnam is now growing, creating more favorable conditions for consumers.
 2.1.4. Threats

With the current market downturn, the price of raw materials is very high. In addition,
Vietnamese tend to switch to cheap, low-cost beverages, Vienamese do not have a
understanding or perception about beer of Thailand in general. So, the market research has
been conducted so many time. Leo Beer will not have a strong position in the Vietnamese
brewing industry.

There will be many new brands entering the Vietnamese market as Vietnam is a fertile land
for foreign businesses. Competition with domestic brewers is hard, and even foreign beer
companies, Leo Beer is facing huge problems. Vietnam beer market is an open market,
however, if Leo Beer wants to penetrate into the Vietnamese market for a long time and
effectively, it must face many big competitors, many years in For example, the Saigon Beer
Alcohol Beverage Joint Stock Company (Sabeco) holds 34% of the market share in the
brewing industry, VBL holds 29.7%, the Beverage Corporation Hanoi (Habeco) accounted
for 19%, in addition to beer beer Turborg, Zorok, Budweiser,...

2.2.Current strategy application of Leo Beer and recommendation

2.2.1. Promotional Strategy

Leo Beer used promotional strategy to build up a long–term image in customer’s mind. Promotional
srategy is very important with a new brand when they want to enter to the market of Vietnam,
promotional strategy emphasized by Leo Beer as a key factor in development process. This strategy
also helps regconized the unique identify of Thai culture, tradition and customs. With Leo Beer, Boon
Rawd Brewery annually spended amount of money on advertisement as well as providing
useful knowledge.

This strategy helps communicate with customers. Advertising is the most component of
promotion, but it is not the only one. The various promotion components are advertising,
sales promotion, personal sales. So, communication can influence customer’s perception.
Through advertising, Leo Beer was presented via virtuallu every type of media such as
magazines, newpapers, radio, television and other media, it can access to customer in a broad
and effective. Leo Beer also hold at a fair tittled “Great Fun Celebration of Leo” or “Leo Fun
Fest”. The objective was to creat public relations for Leo Beer to increase its current market share
from 20%-30%. In addition, Leo Beer had some activities in advertising such as arranging concert
(music marketing). This is suitable for young generation in Vietnam, because the concerts are well
received and the mesmerizing marketing strategy of these concerts is a very smart strategy.

2.2.2. Price Strategy

Leo Beer is priced based on the buyer's perceived value. Watching new buyer awareness is an
important basis rather than the cost of the seller. In addition Leo Beer uses the cost factor in
marketing strategies to build the image in the mind of the Vietnamese.

Leo Beer's market penetration strategy is to choose the most suitable price for Vietnamese
people. However, they still think that the price of Leo Beer is very high compared to
domestic beer. This strategy is reasonable when Leo Beer penetrates into the Vietnamese
consumer market, when the population of Vietnam with two thirds of the population is young
and the trend of globalization is demanding for luxury goods. The majority of Vietnam's
population is gradually becoming "enjoying life". Choosing a price strategy depends on how
the management has decided to price its good or service relative to the competition.
Consumer behavior changed from drinking cheap to expensive drinkers due to the increasing
purchasing power of consumers. There was no discount for company agents even though its
products were bought in large quantities. The agent was the same for everybody, but the
agents had to provide vehicles to pick up items from the company themselves and provide
payment in cash. Products could be received at any time and when the products had nearly
run out, new supplies could be picked up upon request.

However, if Leo Beer performs the price skimming strategy as above, then part of it will be
counterproductive because prce skimming is supposed to sell very high price at the time of
launching a new product, after a while. reduce the price down. But with Vietnam's consumer
environment, a bottle of beer costs twice as much as a normal beer, so they buy less and wait
for the price to go down. Therefore, the manufacturer will not be profitable, so Leo Beer
should balance and maintain the price for a long time to the image of Leo Beer penetration
deep into the demand of Vietnamese people.
CONCLUSION

Leo Beer's SWOT analysis shows that the company has many strengths, and the company
uses these strengths to address and exploit opportunities to expand its market and distribute
product networks. Leo Beer also uses innovative processes and brand image to develop and
launch new products. In addition, Leo Beer faces major challenges affecting the reputation of
the company. An action to address this problem by investing heavily in design and product
change is constantly to secure Leo Beer's competitive advantage over its competitors
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