Lunar July
Month of the soul
COMMUNICATION TREND ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
Vietnamese are quite a superstition, they believe in the lunar July the wandering souls will return to harass them. Believers who follow this concept are often Buddhist followers. Around this month, families usually will have food, money, rice, and salt, and put them outside the house. Vietnamese believe that when the souls receive gifts, they will not harass the family. As people keep blaming their bad lucks for wandering souls, it has become a yearly trend.
TREND ANALYSIS
In 2019, lunar July started on the first day of August. Lunar July is a culture, however the ways Vietnam social media users react to this is a trend, due to the topic tends to be spread widely in a certain time. According to Buzzmetro (2019), there have been over 27 843 engagements on the internet within 7 days, from 27 July to 3 August. The peak of this was on August 1st, there were over 94 articles published on various platforms (Figure 1), all of the contents try to be related to July month such as ‘What should people do on the month of the soul?’ (insurance teach 2019); ‘Gasoline prices suddenly dropped at the beginning of the month soul” (24h newspaper 2019); ‘Hanoi: Hundreds of people flock to Phu Tay Ho to worship on the first day of the 'month of the soul’ ” (DN express 2019), etc. People engaged with this topic the most on 24H newspaper (2020 engagements) and Vietnamnet (1932 engagements) (figure 2). One of the famous activities during this month is ‘Giat co hon” (Deprive the soul), which people will wait after others worship the soul and take what left on the offering. This activity was original from the though of people will ‘steal’ the bad luck away and they could share the offers with the souls later.
Figure 1 collected from Buzzmetro on August 4 2019
Figure 2 collected from Buzzmetro on August 4 2019
It easy to spot posts begin with the phrase “thang co hon” (month of the soul) on social media, however, mostly the content is humorous, and not conflict with the Vietnamese religious views. Posts on Facebook platform that are entertainment and related to the term could easy caught audience attention, some of the posts reach 22 000 reactions in 24 hours period, and other could easy reach 3000 reactions (figure 3, figure 4).
Figure 3 collected from Facebook on August 8 2019
Figure 4 collected from Facebook on August 8 2019
Most videos posted on Youtube platform focus on a serious topic mostly taught people how to prevent bad luck on lunar July. The video of Homnayangi reaches 71 000 views within 24 hours, while others have at least 4 000 views on the same period (figure 5).
Figure 5 collected from Youtube, August 8 2019
Some of the trends during this month are related to Vietnamese spiritual culture, such as burnt paper money, amulet, spirit, etc. Since those contents easy to caught people's attention, sellers intent to create and viral non-practical products, although people may not buy but their posts and Facebook page will be known (Figure 6).
Figure 6 collected from Facebook on August 8 2019
The trend is interesting because having a deep connection with Vietnamese culture and images. The power of this trend on social media is come from people’s habit of blaming bad luck for lunar July. Although social media famous posts are related to the topic, but it doesn’t conflict with Vietnamese opinion, and bring an entertainment vibe to this period. Moreover, people like to start their stories with the "month of the soul", but they don't really believe that something terrible will happen and that habit is only due to word of mouth.
According to Ngoc Lan (2015), the business has changed its though toward lunar in July. There was a time when Vietnam business delays promotion during this time because according to Vietnamese old superstition, the month of the soul wasn’t the best time for shopping, signing big contracts or trading. Many brands have to run a promotion from lunar May to June, to prepare financially for July. In 2014, many stores have closed their store during the month of the soul due to the belief of having bad luck and lack of consumers (Ngan Ha, 2014). However, many businesses have taken the opportunity and follow the topic of the month of the soul. Business starts to change customer buying behavior by having promotions.
In 2019, big brands don’t have a psychological concern about having big projects during this period. Some of the ways that brands can use lunar July to promote their brand. Firstly, topics related to the month of the soul are highly attracting people's attention. Therefore, posts related to the topic increased this month. Next, lunar July is a period that Vietnamese sensitive about the spiritual topic. It is easy to link people's thoughts on the spirit topic. Some of the brands have had posts related to the topic.
Figure 7 collected from Facebook on August 12 2019
On August 9, Tiki released a small campaign name “Dzut Co Hon cung Tiki” (Deprive the soul with Tiki) with different tagline as “Len Tiki dzut co hon” (Go to Tki to deprive the soul” “Dzut co hon, sale het hon” (Deprive the soul, shockingly sale), etc. Tiki wants to promote their deal so cheap that will make consumer ‘shock to their soul’.
Figure 8 collected from Youtube on August 12 2019
In early August 2019, Viettel uploads a viral on Youtube. The video named ‘Đừng mất mạng vì mất mạng’ (Don’t lose life for the loss of network), the video title was a pun because in Vietnamese ‘life’ and ‘network’ have similar pronounce The 4-minute video is about a group of death people telling how they die due to the lack of internet data, then a Viettel-man appears and snapped his finger to change the stories ending, which all people were saved because Viettel offers cheap and quick data. The viral video is interesting because it involves the context of hell and launching during lunar July. The video quickly caught people's attention and received over 12 million views on 3 weeks.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, lunar July is an opportunity that brands could use due to its deep connection to Vietnamese culture. Brands can use this topic to produce a short-term campaign.