HCMC - The Purpose Group, a brand and creative consulting company in Vietnam, and ANTS Programmatic, a technology driven digital data platform company, have been merged into PURPOSE.ANT, a pioneering consulting and solutions company unifying the power of creativity, data, and technology to promote brand growth.

According to the General Statistics Office, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam’s total retail sales of goods and services in 2021 grew 3%-4% over 2020. Consumers are quickly adapting to shopping across different channels and platforms, so brands need to quickly formulate integrated marketing and commerce strategies. This leads to new challenges for marketers, who are not only responsible for branding but also finding new sources of growth, staying ahead of market trends, and working to build a consistent brand experience for customers at different touch points. The Purpose Group founder Nguyen Thanh Giang said the biggest challenge for brands nowadays is that they have not found a really effective solution to overcome the existing challenges in marketing throughout the consumer journey, from several touch points on online channels to closing sales in offline channels. Marketers must grasp changing trends of the market, predict volatility and identify new sources of growth for the brand. This can only be achieved when the brand recognizes the importance of integrating creativity, data, and technology when preparing marketing plans, Giang added. Dinh Le Dat, cofounder and CEO of ANTS Programmatic, said, "Having customer data in hand is one thing, but whether a brand can process, analyze, and activate that data to understand customers is another challenge. And applying the knowledge and information from that data to perfect the customer experience on omnichannel requires a lot of effort. This requires a new organizational and operating model that is able to be agile in adapting to different needs of marketers in the new era."