Field-tested cross-border marketing strategies from teams on the ground in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and China. No generic advice — only what we have seen work.
We write about what actually works, not what looks good in a strategy deck. Every article comes from a campaign we have run, a budget we have managed, or a mistake we have corrected at real cost.
Foreign brands routinely ship their Instagram playbook to Ho Chi Minh City and watch it flop. Vietnamese consumers do not discover brands through curated photo grids. They find them on Zalo, through KOC recommendations, and via word-of-mouth in private chat groups.
Hong Kong brands often treat Xiaohongshu as a billboard they can buy. It is not. It is a consumer reviews platform where hard-selling gets punished and authentic storytelling gets rewarded.
The difference between a trade show that generates leads and one that burns budget usually comes down to three days of preparation that nobody thinks about.
Choosing Zalo means committing to a Vietnamese-first strategy with local payment integration, local customer service, and local trust signals. Choosing WhatsApp means signalling that you are still thinking about Vietnam through a lens that does not fit.
You can spend $50,000 on a beautiful Chinese website, but if it does not have an ICP licence it will not load behind the Great Firewall. Not slowly. Not sometimes. Not at all.
Every quarter we publish a deep-dive report on one cross-border corridor. We are not writing marketing fluff. We are writing field research — the kind of analysis that comes from running actual campaigns in actual markets with actual budgets.
How Zalo Official Accounts are quietly replacing traditional distributor relationships for Vietnamese F&B brands entering Hong Kong. Why the "Southeast Asian" label is a death sentence in Hong Kong retail positioning.
The platform assumptions Chinese brands routinely get wrong about Vietnam. Why MoMo integration matters more than slick product photography in local e-commerce.
The true cost of ICP compliance beyond the filing fee. How Xiaohongshu seeding has shifted from organic community building to pay-to-play influencer marketing.
We give these papers away free because we believe the best clients are informed clients. The more you understand these markets, the more likely you are to choose a partner who actually understands them too.