From Bricolage to Pho - Vietnam as a model for global influences and assimilations at meal times

M ulticultu ral Resea rch A selection of expertise from TNS colleagues around the world Edited by Stephanie Herold Emil Morales | 1 Alison Dexter | Research Director | Vietnam Bach Ngoc Hieu An | Associate Research Manager | Vietnam From Bricolage to Pho - Vietnam as a model for global influences and assimilations at meal times We must continue to adapt new models as market research plays a greater role across the production and marketing chain from innovation and new product development to packaging and point of sale. Like a great chef drawing on theory, practice, imagination and confidence, we must materialize a fine balance of art and skill to deliver an outcome akin to the perfect bowl of Vietnamese Pho. Come on a ‘pholicious’ journey as we showcase a methodology applicable across Asia Pacific and beyond. Introduction Pho pronounced ‘fuh’ in English, is arguably the most widely known and loved face of Vietnamese cuisine. Whilst once the realm of Vietnam and its emigrants, the extent of its current following seems to know no limits. A simple, humble and yet profound sum of its parts, its aroma wafts up from its finely balanced broth; home to al dente white rice noodles, commonly flanking thin cuts of beef, astride a tantalising array of fresh herbs, lime wedges and sauces. The journey of this paper follows the journey and making of ‘Pho’. Whilst the various translations of Pho will be part of the discussion in this paper, one translation is ‘your own bowl’, highlighting Pho’s unique position in Vietnamese cuisine. Pho is not a dish that is shared as in the usual collective act of eating meals as a group, rather an individual bowl whose overall outcome is determined by the end recipient. Thus whilst the uniqueness and importance of local insights are an imperative, Vietnam is a surprising template for the global influences and assimilations that are occurring across the world’s dinner tables, making it entirely applicable on a world wide scale. The tensions between history, tradition and diverse cultures and influences versus adaptation, change and modernity are vitally relevant. We have had the privilege of working with our global client in Vietnam on their foods business, specifically cooking aids and sauces, on an ongoing basis for more than 5 years. It is during this time that local cooking habits have | 155 Alison Dexter | Research Director | Vietnam Bach Ngoc Hieu An | Associate Research Manager | Vietnam been evolving in a subtle yet fundamental way. Seasoning plays a critical role in Vietnamese cooking given the most important outcome in both a dish and a meal is balance. In a culture where most cooking is built up from scratch, the success of packaged seasoning products, whilst hinged on their ‘incredible’ convenience, is only enabled by their quality, image and ability to deliver a naturally delicious and aromatic outcome. Wendy Gordon (1999) introduced the notion of Qualitative researchers as people who need to specialize in bricolage, adopted from Claude Levis Strauss, who as a French anthropologist noted that studying myths required deliberate mixing of qualitative methods and ways of thinking in order to address a specific issue or problem. A ‘bricoleur’ means a jack-of-all-trades, and ‘bricolage’ has been used within academic qualitative research to describe a pragmatic and eclectic approach to qualitative research. We want to utilize a metaphor apt for the Vietnamese environment to say in fact what is required is to be a Pho chef. Qualitative researchers are required to create dishes which while embedded in best practice, need to deliver at an individual level for our clients; to facilitate a search and hunt for the golden kernel insights and an outcome of opportunity. A good Pho chef has a deep understanding of his/her ingredients, in the same way an experienced practitioner needs a deep understanding of their consumers, bringing illumination not only to how people behave but more critically to why. Great Pho chefs need to understand how to combine ingredients for the best outcome. In the same way, great practitioners will draw a connection between what they find out about a target audience and the brand, category or competitor to illuminate a business application. The end user needs to be able to “digest” both, for it not just to be a recipe, but also a meal. In this paper we are going to talk the audience through a case study. This case study will showcase how and what has been adapted in researching cooking habits and ingredient interaction and application in Vietnam, to look at inter and intra dependant forces. This approach, made in Asia, decodes the role the physical attributes of a product play and reveals how to make them optimal in the local marketplace. It demonstrates how the local teams had to approach researching the innovation, sophistication and articulateness of Vietnam’s cooks, with a suitable dose of the same ingredients. It will demonstrate a new model that lets product and brand management as well as R&D into the consumer experience, by unlocking and decoding the experience through a range of relevant techniques. Origins of Pho Likely to have come in to being in the early 1900’s, Pho has around a century of history. It is agreed that Pho began its journey in Vietnam’s north and spread to the southern and central parts in the mid-1950s, post the defeat of the French and with the Geneva Accord’s partitioning of the country in to two, gaining flamboyancy as it went. 156 | Alison Dexter | Research Director | Vietnam Bach Ngoc Hieu An | Associate Research Manager | Vietnam The earlier origins of Pho are debated however. Some believe it owes itself to French methods used in bouillon cooking. Some even believe the name to be derived from the French beef stew dish ‘pot-au-feu’ (with pho being the Vietnamese pronunciation of feu). This connects to the fact that oxen were rarely eaten until the French arrived, given their value as work animals. Then there is the strong possibility of Chinese origins. China ruled over Vietnam for a thousand years and many influences are found in Vietnamese cuisine as well as across the culture. Some of the pho spice ingredients as well as the use of rice noodles are certainly Chinese influences. This case study has its origins in an ongoing client relationship. We previously noted the relationship as more than 5 years. Given that the market research industry in Vietnam is not far past 10 years old, this demonstrates our client’s commitment to consumer led decision making and their contribution to the evolution of the local market research industry. This is alongside their role in transforming the traditional way of seasoning with sugar, salt and MSG. Our journey together has involved a large amount of studies across a range of objectives and methodologies, from projects purely focused on exploration of consumers needs and cooking habits, through to quite tightly focused projects around concept, packaging and communications development. Methodologies have spanned across quantitative and qualitative methodologies (predominantly the latter), including in-home visits with an ethnographic focus on observing and understanding cooking attitudes and practices; in-depth interviews in our offices (incorporating cooking sessions), focus groups both in our offices (exploratory groups, concept recycling and reconvene groups) and in-home (at the participant’s home or even at our Managing Director’s or one of our researchers homes). In 2008 alone we worked on 14 projects together for this category, meaning more than a project a month, and underscoring the importance of a close, iterative and productive working partnership. A bricolage approach is one we are well-acquainted with as a client-agency team. Such an approach is not just evidence of the evolution of qualitative market research thinking, rather perhaps never more a necessity than in a market like Vietnam, and particularly so in the foods category. It is an approach evident in most of the projects we work on together, but the particular project chosen to focus on for this paper was our most challenging for 2008, with a strong R&D slant. Broadly speaking, the objective was to determine optimal cooking granule innovation for Vietnam. The particular background details to the brief and the process requirements or preferences stated by the client for us to respond to included: key findings and potential hypotheses from previous research and internal competitive | 157 Alison Dexter | Research Director | Vietnam Bach Ngoc Hieu An | Associate Research Manager | Vietnam market knowledge in Vietnam, as well as the sharing of a methodology and discussion around strengths/ weaknesses from the same type of project in another market. There was a request for new approaches or techniques that could take in to account both the research limitations and the need for findings that go beyond shallow and descriptive output of the consumer’s generic (and functionally skewed) response to the subject matter.