Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times: Asian Innovation, Inclusion, and Impact during COVID-19

ASIA BUSINESS COUNCIL HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2 4 DatVietVAC Group Holdings (Vietnam) Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times YouTube and Facebook in four months, breaking YouTube’s premier record in Vietnam (previously set by Siêu Trí Tuệ) with more than 1.1 million CCU, and creating a media frenzy with more than 1,000 articles. While rap music had lived “underground” for over 10 years prior to the Rap Việt show, DatVietVAC is seen to have “activated a revolution in the history of Vietnamese music culture, bringing rap to the top, shoulder to shoulder with music genres in the mainstream.” In the words of Thanh’s daughter Nam Phuong, an Oxford graduate who now works in the family business, “It is difficult to find a Vietnamese person who does not know about the show, from young children to 80-year-old retirees. Coffee shops have the episodes on, bars and clubs play Rap Việt songs, and multiple school re-openings have students doing performances related to the show… It has been the talking point of the whole country since the first episode was aired.” The content offering attracts a wide demographic for the VieON user base, which currently has a 50-50 split between male and female audiences and a broad distribution of viewers across age groups. Thanh hopes that VieON will be able to reach all parts of the Vietnamese population with popular shows and series, spreading hope and cheer and helping audiences go through these uncertain times. Notably, DatVietVAC also has plans to go beyond Vietnam’s borders. There are at least 5 million Vietnamese living around the world. 1 The company’s first step internationally will be to launch VieON in markets like the United States, Cambodia, France, and Australia, where it can provide Vietnamese content to overseas Vietnamese communities. In Thanh’s view, this audience living far from home craves home content and culture, while also being used to high standards of offerings from their new home economies, so VieON’s premium content and world-class product would potentially be a very good fit. Rap Việt has brought rap shoulder to shoulder with music genres in the mainstream