Edelman releases inaugural Cultural Connections Report on Southeast Asia consumer trends with focus on Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia

Edelman has published a consumer trends report titled Cultural Connections: Southeast Asia with a focus on three countries: Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia. In each country, local Edelman experts trekked through their cities to witness and record local trends and get out from behind their computer screens to share consumer insights. The issue features original photography captured by local teams, insights from Edelman’s next generation of experts and the scene on the streets. Cultural Connections: Southeast Asia can be found online here.

“We went to work compiling local market nuances, the tensions arising in each area, what people are buying and why, what’s being remixed, reused and repurposed and most importantly, what marketers need to know before stepping foot into these countries,” said Maxine Gurevich, senior manager of Global Insights and Consumer Practice Development, and project leader for the report. “We found a new nationalism has emerged that isn’t a strongly imposed, top-down approach, but one that is all-encompassing, collaborative and rooted in tradition by the people.”

For all three markets, Edelman researchers found a major cultural theme: “Globally mobile yet locally rooted.” An increasingly mobile and young demographic majority is bringing rapid globalization and change to the region. Yet, the more globalized nations become, the more concerned citizens are that aspects of their culture and traditions are disappearing.

Edelman researchers found that the substantial population growth in Vietnam – leading to 70 percent of the country’s population being under 30 years old – has spurred change and a cultural evolution in the country. Rather than doing away with the old, the worlds of the young and elderly are colliding, preserving the traditions of yesterday and transforming the culture for the next generation.

Respondents in Singapore told our researchers that they felt overwhelmed by the speed of innovation their country has invested in and have found it a challenge to keep their local culture intact because of the rapid growth they’ve experienced – a finding first discovered in Edelman’s Global Innovation and the Earned Brand Study. Today, Singaporeans are putting greater emphasis on reclaiming and preserving their heritage in an effort to protect Singapore’s identity, by revisiting family values and implementing preservation orders.

And in Malaysia, Edelman researchers found that its ethnic diversity is seen as both a blessing and a source of tension, requiring marketers there to factor a wider variety of values, languages and cultures to reaching their target audiences.