Nhu nguyen

Throughout my career, I’ve managed hundreds of campaigns, some built to drive sales, others to drive change. While their goals appear different, to me their success depends on the same formula: helping people see how the story connects to their lives and demands, and how their choices can shape impact.

The power of motivation: Aspiration and Belief

Every campaign I plan begins with a simple question: how will people feel connected to the brand or organization and the story I want to tell?

To answer that, I always start by diving as deep as I can into social listening, market research, and planning surveys and interviews, through social listening, market research, surveys, and interviews. I want to know who they are, what drives their decisions, how they think, shop, and engage with media, and what influences their choices in related areas of life. My goal is to make the audience love the brand as much as I do. So I treat them like my new shopping buddies who share similar habits, motivations, and moments of discovery. I keep exploring until the facts and figures spark inspiration, and I can clearly visualize their journey from curiosity to choice.

With brands, what they truly sell is an image — an identity that customers want to see themselves in and become a part of. It’s the story of confidence, belonging, a touch of luxury, or the joy that comes with small indulgences when life feels generous. When a brand campaign works, it’s because it taps into who we want to be. Buying becomes a symbolic act: “If I use this, I’m closer to the version of myself I imagine.”

In categories like milk or nutritional supplements, the story often centers on protection, safeguarding what we value most: our health and our loved ones. These campaigns evoke the desire to secure a good future, where we can enjoy the years ahead surrounded by family and friends in well-being and happiness. Through the product story, we paint the best possible scenario people can experience — if they take action now by buying this product.

The story becomes different when I work on social behavior change campaigns for non-profit organizations. The key insight is that most people don’t feel sustainability topics truly affect their daily lives. Human rights, gender equality, public health access, climate change? They all sound vast and institutional, as if they belong in ministerial meetings or intergovernmental reports, not in the everyday conversations of people simply trying to live, work, and enjoy their moments. “I can’t do anything about it, so why should I think of its solution, unless I’m running for office tomorrow?”. It was one of the most common responses I heard during my first year working in sustainability. Rising the relevancy and feel of belonging is a challenge yet potential of my everyday’s job.

For products, no matter which brand customers use, the demand already exists. Our job is to convert them to the brand or make our product a natural part of their shopping routine. But for NGOs, the challenge is different. We need to capture attention, translate complex stories, and help people realize that what seems distant or abstract is, in fact, affecting their daily lives. It may not touch them directly today or tomorrow, but its consequences are already shaping their living conditions, opportunities, and labor markets — if not in our generation, then in our children’s. That’s why what we do is critical. A firm belief must be built before behavior can change.

The execution core: selling and storytelling

When it comes to mapping a clear roadmap, brand campaigns follow a product journey from launch to market acceptance, sparking conversations, and eventually becoming the customer’s preferred choice. For NGOs, the journey is more emotional than transactional. Through storytelling, we guide people along a perception journey, helping them understand the issue, feel connected to it, and gradually move from awareness to participation, whether by sharing their own experiences or taking real action to support the cause.

In short,
Brands say, “See us and choose us”
NGOs say, “Feel us and act with us.”

But is there really a clear boundary between the two concepts? To me, there isn’t. Today’s consumers expect brands to stand for something more than products. At the same time, NGOs are adopting the sharpness and simplicity of commercial storytelling to stay relevant in a fast-moving world.

I once developed a campaign strategy to boost sales and refresh brand identity during the holiday season for a long-standing milk brand. The product and its packaging had remained unchanged for over 20 years, becoming a top-of-mind choice for family-oriented customers, which is an advantage, but also a challenge. Communicating functional benefits or nutritional composition was no longer enough to win attention.

So, I went back to the basics, studying how the product and its competitors performed in the local market, and how the brand could stay relevant amid new health regulations, societal trends, and consumer behaviors. I elevated the story to connect both social and commercial dimensions, linking it to national health recommendations for different age groups from children and adolescents to older adults, all of whom were part of our target audiences.

By aligning the product narrative with a broader social movement, I mapped out a clear campaign journey that moved seamlessly from awareness to advocacy. We began by reintroducing the product story to remind customers of its core values and emotional place in family life. Then, we connected the brand with public health messages and societal trends, positioning it as part of a larger national conversation on well-being. As the campaign evolved, we reinforced the product’s relevance in a changing society, not just as a household staple, but as a symbol of care and togetherness across generations. Finally, we sustained that emotional connection throughout the festive season, keeping the brand meaningful as something that brings health, happiness, and shared moments to every member of the family.

Having worked in both the retail and NGO worlds, I’ve developed a unique ability to translate between two languages: the emotional appeal of brands and the moral resonance of causes, which is also recommended for all communicators.

The Measure of Success: ROI vs. Ripple Effect

Now comes the stage of evaluation where we must demonstrate that our work has created real impact, regardless of the methods or approaches we used. For brand campaigns, success is often clear and quantifiable, measured through reach, engagement, conversion rates, brand purpose scores, perception of efficacy, and sales lift. Every number tells a story about visibility, brand momentum, performance, and return on investment.

One important point is that KPIs should always be customized to align with the campaign’s objectives and the current market landscape, not simply duplicated from previous campaigns. Even within the same brand, each campaign contributes a unique angle and added value to the brand’s overarching annual strategy that we must monitor.

On the other side, for social and behavior change campaigns within international organizations, impact takes a different shape. It’s subtler, slower, and often more profound. Beyond the immediate results of social engagement or media reach compared with the investment and funding available, we look for gradual shifts, in perception, in conversation, and eventually, in behavior. The metrics expand beyond numbers to include awareness, participation, and the influence a message creates within families, schools, and communities.

Evaluation in this context focuses on measuring influence and change. Campaign results are often assessed through mixed methods — combining digital analytics and media monitoring with field surveys, focus groups, and qualitative storytelling that capture real, lived experiences. Because social transformation rarely happens overnight, we examine both short-term indicators, such as awareness or engagement, and long-term outcomes, such as policy influence, community adoption, or the emergence of new social norms. The ultimate goal is to ensure that communication goes beyond informing — that it empowers, mobilizes, and leaves a lasting imprint on people’s lives. Therefore, evaluation must also include a broader perspective: how each campaign contributes to advancing the topic across local, regional, and global movements.

Yet, despite these differences, the underlying discipline remains the same: track outcomes, interpret them wisely, and keep learning from the story behind the data. Because in both worlds, numbers alone never capture the full picture.

Whether it’s a brand inspiring a purchase or an NGO inspiring change, both are trying to do the same thing: help people imagine a better version of themselves and better life they can have, and believe they can be part of it. That, ultimately, is what drives human behavior.