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A few years ago, Vietnam barely had markets. Now it has market researchers elbowing to fill the offbeat role required by the industry - part statistician, part sociologist, part private detective.

In most countries, market researchers test new shampoos or reactions to planned advertising campaigns. In Vietnam their work is less predictable. With high taxes and long, porous borders, Vietnam is heaven for smugglers of even the most mundane products - soap powders, sweets, vegetable oils. Official trade and production statistics are deeply flawed and many clients want a simple description of market size.

Visiting factories, talking to trucking companies, sifting through dusty old provincial government record books is a start for getting at legal trade. "The only way to measure smuggling is to go to the shops," said Linh Bao Nguyen, general manager of SRG Vietnam, the biggest foreign presence in the market. SRG in June launched a retail audit which involved trailing around thousands of mom and pop stores in major cities, noting down stock and quizzing owners about sales.

"You could call us detectives, sure," said Trieu Ton Phong, director of MSV, the country's biggest indigenous market research group. "We have to support our clients in finding out what and how his competitor is doing."

Most of those clients are still foreign companies. The few local companies that are prepared to pay independent researchers to find out what clients want rarely make best use of the information, Phong complained. "They don't know how to use findings to make decisions," he said. "They evaluate the data but then ignore it and go with the gut."

There are exceptions. "Before Vietnam Airlines did their passenger satisfaction surveys, I got instant noodles out of a lunch box. Now I get a dinner menu," said one researcher.

An executive at a large Asian multinational that has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into market research counters that in emerging markets, the gut has much to recommend it. "The board uses all this data as an excuse not to make any decisions," he protested. "In a market that is changing as fast as this one, it is nonsense to rely on some questionnaire designed at head office."

Researchers on the ground often find their multinational clients are unrealistic about what can be achieved in communist Vietnam, where propaganda is still a sacred cow and where people remain reluctant to talk openly to strangers about sensitive subjects.

"There are clients who want to know what people think of government, of communism etc, so they can determine what effect health messages will have on the cigarette market," said one Ho Chi Minh City-based researcher. "We look at each other and try not to laugh."

Even repeating research from neighboring countries can be tough. "The big boss sits at his table in New York hooked into the Internet and wants to compare data from Vietnam today with data from Thailand five years ago and we have to say, it's just not like that," Linh said.

The real growth on research companies' balance sheets is coming from existing clients, who have already launched products and who are now interested in market share. "They've pumped a lot of money into Vietnam and now, two or three years down the road, head office is saying 'give me some results'," Linh said.

But actual sales figures are the trickiest part of the business. Most market researchers acknowledge that their information is most valuable in indicating trends, not real figures. "For all we know we are 60 percent out on market size. As long as we are always 60 percent out, you will still see the trend," said one researcher. "But if you really want to know how many tubes of toothpaste the competition is selling, we may have a problem."

In a business that is all about getting a jump start on the competition, researchers in Vietnam have yet another difficulty. While information may be at a premium, confidentiality is even more so. The very small fraternity of marketing professionals in the country are likely to have been classmates. And foreign market research companies widely believe most of their activities are monitored by the Ministry of the Interior.

One researcher said he tried to use code names to avoid information leaking out through monitored faxes or phone calls. "But it is a typical Asian society," said a researcher. "Everybody knows everybody else. Some guy at the Ministry of the Interior goes drinking with some journalist and suddenly the new product launch is all over the papers."

For all the limitations of the trade, the consumer goods industries that are currently salivating over Vietnam's 76 million potential buyers are happy to keep coming up with funding for research. In 1993, US$400,000 was spent on market research in the country. By 1995, the figure topped US$3 million and it is expected to double again this year.

"That our own market will grow is the one trend we're absolutely certain of," a director of research said.

Copyright 1996 Asia Times.

(c) 1996 Chamber World Network International Ltd.