VietNamNet Bridge – The presence of foreign celebrities in Vietnam brought big money to some businessmen and helped them polish their businesses’ images. However, cooperating with the “stars” is always a very costly, and sometimes costly, game.

Celebrities fill up businessmen’s pockets with money

The prices of HAG shares of Hoang Anh Gia Lai group made a volte-face, rising continuously in the last six trading sessions on the occasion of the British football club Arsenal’s tour to Vietnam.

HAG prices have increased by VND2.100 per share so far, from VND20,300 to VND22,400 per share, or 10 percent, by the end of July 16 trading session.

Holding 310 million HAG, the total stock assets of Hoang Anh Gia Lai’s President Doan Nguyen Duc have increased by VND650 billion.

HAG prices still increased sharply, though the group did not release any noteworthy information about its business performance. This gave investors one more reason to believe that the “Arsenal effect” had positive influences to HAG prices.

Prior to that, the event that President of Hoa Sen Group Le Phuoc Vu invited Nick Vujicic, an Australian motivational speaker born with neither arms nor legs, to Vietnam for meetings in Hanoi and HCM City also kicked a fuss among the public.

Hoa Sen group reportedly spent VND31.7 billion on the event, from which analysts believe that the Vietnamese group would reap big benefits, including “intangible benefits.” However, what could be seen clearly was that HSG shares of Hoa Sen witnessed the prices soar from less than VND40,000 per share in early May 2013 to over VND50,000 at the end of the month.

Within two days the man stayed in Vietnam, May 23 and 24, HSG shares suddenly increased sharply by 9.3 percent, which then made HSG market value increase by VND400 billion in total. Meanwhile, the President saw his stock value increasing by VND180 billion to VND2.12 trillion.

With the same “shaking hands with celebrities” scenario, BIDV, one of the Vietnamese biggest commercial banks, once invited Manchester’s former goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel to Vietnam on the occasion of the bank’s new card product launching ceremony.

Pepsi, a big drink manufacturer, once organized a football event with the image of the Vietnamese well-known Nguyen Hong Son, kicking off the ball together with the world’s leading footballers.

Sabeco, one of the two biggest Vietnamese breweries, at this year’s shareholders’ meeting, informed that it planned to spend one million dollars to invite the Number 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic to Vietnam to play tennis at an event to be organized at the Lan Anh Stadium in HCM City in 2013.

The big losses

Though Hoang Anh Gia Lai’s President Hoang Nguyen Duc and Hoa Sen’s President Le Phuoc Vu denied the fact that they made big deals when inviting the foreign celebrities to Vietnam, they really have got big benefits from their campaigns.

However, the scenario does not always bring the desired effects. A business recently implied that it may invite a Japanese sexy film star to Vietnam to help advertise a new game product.

The plan immediately faced the heavy criticism from the public. It was described as a “dirty marketing trick” which should not be used by enterprises.

Vinamilk, a big dairy producer, once spent $2 million to have Arsenal to represent its instant coffee product Moment. However, the deal could not bring the expected effects.

Sources said that the product only made up 1 percent of the total profit of Vinamilk, much lower than the expected 5 percent.

Huan Tu