Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam – Mondelez Kinh Do and Publicis Groupe Vietnam have joined forces on a new ‘One Day of Togetherness’ campaign that calls for employers to give one full day off for families to celebrate Tet Trung Thu together.
The campaign, created by Publicis Groupe Vietnam, revolves around the 400-year tradition of the Tet Trung Thu celebration that is slowly being buried and forgotten as many people began to prioritise work and business over celebrating with their families, especially since it is not a national holiday.
Tet Trung Thu, or mid-autumn festival, is the second-biggest festival in Vietnam, where the moon is at its brightest and crops are fully harvested. Traditionally, families come together to give thanks, light lanterns, and eat mooncakes together as parents make up for lost time with children after harvest seasons.
To kickstart the campaign, Mondelez Kinh Do, makers of Kinh Do mooncakes, gave their 3,000 employees a day off to celebrate the festival with their families. The company also delivered special boxes of their 25th anniversary mooncakes with personal letters to leaders of leading companies in Vietnam to invite them to join the move to give employees a day off.
Already, thirteen companies have pledged to follow suit. Publicis Groupe Vietnam also gave all their employees a day off to celebrate the festivities.
The ‘One Day of Togetherness’ campaign is rooted in the results of a survey where 92% of Vietnamese wish they could have one day off to celebrate this festival with loved ones. Currently, almost 300,000 Vietnamese have voted on the petition on the Kinh Do platform to declare Tet Trung Thu a national holiday.
Anil Viswanathan, managing director at Mondelez Kinh Do Vietnam, said, “We discovered that deep inside the hearts of every Vietnamese person is the wish to have a whole day to celebrate the mid-Autumn Festival with loved ones. To keep this festival alive, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kinh Do Mooncakes, we gave all our employees in Vietnam the day off, and we hope other organisations in Vietnam will follow suit. Happy Trung Thu! ”
Commenting on the campaign, Kate Bayona Garcia, CEO at Publicis Groupe Vietnam, also shared, “This initiative is truly meaningful to the preservation of Vietnamese culture and to the wellbeing of our people. Last Friday, we were out-of-office and away from the keyboard, lighting lanterns and enjoying Kinh Do mooncakes with the people we love. Together with Mondelez Kinh Do, we are proud to be part of a movement to keep Vietnam’s mid-autumn festival alive.”
