Five minutes with M — N Associates
Fresh from giving an excellent talk at the 2024 Brand New Conference in Salt Lake City, US, on their agency’s history, M — N Associates co-founders Lan Mai and Duy Nguyen sit down with Transform. The pair talk about the design scene back home in Ho Chi Minh City, the project that put them on the map and the future of brand design in Vietnam.
Tell me about the design scene in Vietnam. How does it differ there compared to other countries around the world, and maybe Asian countries in particular?
Lan: I think that the design scene in Vietnam is quite new – maybe around 15 years old. So it's quite new to all of us, especially in branding, I think. Also, our culture is not like the other countries around us; Singapore is quite modern and disciplined, for instance.
Duy: Vietnamese people tend to live more by habits. So it's more about the culture, it's more about things that are going on. If you know the flow of living, then you've captured the culture. Compared to other countries, [brand design] is very new back home, it’s not like the advertising world or architecture; design and branding is still new to people.
How does your agency, M – N Associates, differ from other competitors in your country?
Duy: From my perspective, it's about how we can tell a story. We tell a story that I think is very close to what the brand actually is for every client. Every time we do the research, we always get to the foundation. I want to tell it perfectly in a new way about how people consume it, how people can see it, how this modern world can recognise heritage brands that can last for three decades, for example. And we always try to tell it in the easiest way for the consumer to get it. I think that's the best way to get people to recognise a brand.
Was there one particular project where things started to click from thereafter?
Lan: Guta!
Duy: It was a perfect cultural story. It's just people sitting around everywhere on the street. You cannot find it in a library, you cannot see it in a textbook. You just see it with your own eyes. Then you can bring it into the graphic world and bring it into branding. We applied it perfectly, and that's been the foundation for everything right now.
What’s the biggest challenge you face as a design agency right now?
Lan: Finding the right people. Because the market's young, it's not easy to find the right designers. It's quite difficult because there's not much of an emphasis at universities in Vietnam to teach about branding. So then we are faced with a problem. They teach graphic design for posters and advertising, but branding is just like a small section on a university course.
Externally, it’s convincing clients because they have different ways of thinking. When you are an owner, you think about the numbers. When you are a designer or in marketing, you just say that it should be beautiful, so I think it's quite difficult to convince them. But we've done a good job so far!
Duy: In time, people begin to believe in branding and have the trust to understand what we are doing. That's why I talk [to clients] case by case, because when every project is laid down to them, people can see how the system flows. And it's just about having a strategy and the tactics to attack the market and to have the right campaigns. But now they understand how every brand element can be used in the world. Even just one element that's truly meaningful can last forever. Then they really appreciate it.
What’s the future of brand design in Vietnam? Will it be a slow process of teaching the next generation of designers and clients about the power of branding?
Duy: No, I think it will be very quick. It is hard to find people, but in around two years we have had hundreds of applications [to work with us], so I think it's now more about finding the right ones. Right now you have a lot of groups of talented people everywhere and they're really hungry for creativity.
