112 | Proceeding Book 7th Asian Academic Society International Conference 2019 ISBN: 978-602-61265-5-9 Effect Of Promotion On Customers’ Trust Organic Food In The Mekong Delta Trinh Phuoc Nguyen 1* , Huynh Thanh Tien 2 , Nguyen Thi Diem Hang 3 1 Deputy Director Research center for Rural Development, An Giang University, VNUHCM 2 Director of Resource Center for Community Development, An Giang University, VNUHCM 3 Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, An Giang University, VNUHCM Corresponding author, Email address: tpnguyen@agu.edu.vn Abstract The customer’s trust is seen as a key for the survival to any enterprises wanting to maintain sustainably in the competitive market at present time. Enterprises need to experience ceaseless efforts to gain their customer’s trust. In addition, the quality of the product, there are many other factors contributing to build and strengthen the trust of consumers. This study is to determine factors of marketing activities which have impacts on the trust of organic food in The Mekong Delta. The study was conducted with two promotion tools (advertisement and PR), surveyed 300 subjects in the Mekong Delta region, Vietnam. Descriptive statistics, EFA analysis and MLR regression analysis were used to find the advertisement and PR’s impact on the customer’s trust. The analysis results showed, form of public relations, the usefulness of public relations activities, the quality of information from public relations activities have great impacts on customers’ trust. This means that when the customer feels good about the above-mentioned factors, the higher the trust they have on the product. Based on the results, the author proposed solutions to gain greater trusts from customers. For instance, it is necessary to have a careful study on target customers’ psychology, preferences and habits when they approach advertising media and their perceptions of the frequency of advertising. The enterprises need to provide advertising information in a full and honest manner. They should develop PR programs that focus on usefulness for the target audience and the community. Key words: advertisement, promotion, trust, organic food. I. Introduction During the current integration and development of a market economy, competition is a vital element or ‘success or failure’ for every business. Therefore, in order to stand firmly in such a fiercely competitive environment, every business needs to build up trusts towards its customers for their products. It can be said that trust for products and brands of enterprises is an extremely valuable intangible assets that businesses need to preserve. Sandro (2007) stated that trust of customers is competitive strength, almost inimitable, easy to lose but very difficult to rebuild it and credibility is the awareness of customer loyalty. Customer's trust plays an extremely important role in the success of the business. However, with the currently competitive environment, customers are easily attacked by a huge amount of information from marketing strategies. However, with their intelligence and understanding, customers are not easily "enticed" by the messages from the marketing strategies of the manufacturer. Moreover, with the frequency as well as marketing activities that are happening in the market, it is complicated that there are many questions that force businesses to answer. For instance, Can customers easily trust products through promotion activities or not? How do marketing activities affect customer confidence? Does customer’s confidence increase for products? Therefore, the study is to determine factors of marketing activities which have impacts on the trust of organic foods in The Mekong Delta to assess in an authentic way. The impact of marketing activities on customer’s confidence in organic foods in particular as well as all products of other businesses are circulating in the market in general. 2. Rationale and research model brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by ASEAN / Asian Academic Society International Conference (AASIC) Proceeding Series