Tag: 12.12 Sale

Amidst a growing competition amongst regional and local e-commerce players in Indonesia, Tokopedia managed to rise from other players during the 12.12 sale period. How did they do it? The Indonesian e-commerce giant tapped Kobo Kanaeru, a virtual YouTuber (VTuber) under the Hololive agency, and Internet personality/music producer Heiakim to produce a one-minute jingle ahead of the sale period.

What resulted was a significant success for Tokopedia, who not only put more focus on the platform in contrast to other players but also caught the attention of both local and international VTuber fans who showed interest in the collaboration through fan engagement endeavours such as fan arts and even meme edits.

For MARKETECH APAC’s first Top Story of the year, we spoke exclusively once again with Jonathan Locanawan, senior lead for social media at Tokopedia to learn more about the brand’s insights on creating authentic campaigns that not only resonated with niche fan groups but also speaking to the diverse Indonesian community.

Always appealing to specific audiences

Setting aside this specific 12.12 campaign featuring Kobo Kanaeru and Heiakim, Tokopedia has long been known to appeal to a wide range of audiences, whether it is Tokopedia posting online of their mascot ‘Toped’ jokingly making a prayer circle to summon their favourite Genshin Impact character or ‘Toped’ attending a popular Indonesian pop culture convention cosplaying as the character Gojo Satoru of the Jujutsu Kaisen series.

When asked how they can juggle many communities to appeal to, Locanawan points directly to better understanding the behaviour of various demographics, researching about the group, and strategising on how to approach them best.

The 12.12 campaign jingle from Tokopedia, co-created by popular Indonesian VTuber Kobo Kanaeru from Hololive and popular music producer Heiakim

“Tokopedia always tries to provide new ways to cater the ever-evolving preferences of Indonesian consumers, one of them is by doing research and understanding the persona of each target audience that we would like to engage with many of our campaigns,” he said.

He added, “After doing enough research, we then tailor and introduce various campaigns, aside from WAR Diskon (the local name of the campaign), to appeal to more specific communities.”

Locanawan then listed a wide array of special campaigns for very specific audiences, ranging from beauty products to fashion, and automotive parts, and even allowing local sellers to sell directly their food and beverage products on the platform.

“There are many other campaigns on Tokopedia that we continuously fine-tune to ensure that the products curated are always aligned with the needs,” he said.

Locanawan also notes the importance of relevancy across platforms but specifies that despite always keeping up to date with their diverse demographic, what is most important for them is to always stay true to their brand ethos: consumer centricity as the guiding star.

“Appealing to the various audiences is how Tokopedia tries to stay relevant. However, we also try to keep our distinctiveness. Amongst the sea of heavy promotions from the entire industry, we always try to come up with something special to really stand out from the crowd yet still maintain the local authenticity, sensibility and voice of ‘Tokopedia’,” he added.

Upholding the ‘focus on consumer’ value

When MARKETECH APAC previously spoke with Locanawan exclusively on the launch of their 12.12 campaign, he said, “Regardless of whatever strategy is used, consumer centricity has always been our guiding star—how we can ensure our consumers can benefit from the products, services and partnerships provided. That is what Tokopedia will always do to keep winning the hearts of Indonesians.”

In this instance, he added, “For example, whatever we do, we always try to put ourselves in the shoes of our user and understand their perspective—what pain points they face, what can help solve those challenges, what they like and don’t like. At Tokopedia, we always ask, is what we are doing relevant to our consumers?”

One of the many fan arts created following the collaboration between Tokopedia and Kobo Kanaeru

Locanawan is right: the Tokopedia 12.12 campaign proved to be a huge success, as it resonated well with its target audiences. Within a week of the jingle’s release, the brand garnered more than 7.5 million impressions across social media platforms (Twitter, TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube). It also achieved over 780k engagements, generated more than 5k fan video edits and fan art, and even attracted 1.7k viewers eagerly awaiting the premiere of our one-hour loop video.

“By upholding our ‘Focus on Consumer’ value, this is how we were able to come up with various campaigns that cater to different audiences, from Tokopedia Beauty, Tokopedia Tekno to Tokopedia NYAM! and many more,” he said, about the multiple campaigns they do for various demographics.

Lastly, when asked how Tokopedia can be ‘all over the place’ in launching demographic-specific campaigns without sounding forced, Locanawan had this to say.

“We also never want to stick to only one idea, even if the idea itself sounds comfortable. We always try to see that the only thing constant is change. We see gaps in a problem as opportunities or interesting challenges to overcome, with helping Indonesian consumers as Tokopedia’s end-goal,” he concluded.

Jakarta, Indonesia – As part of the hype during the popular 12.12 sale period across online e-commerce players, popular Indonesian e-commerce player Tokopedia has engaged with Kobo Kanaeru, the biggest Indonesian virtual YouTuber (VTuber) in terms of subscriber count; and popular online music creator Harry Citradi, also known as Heiakim, to create the platform’s latest 12.12 campaign jingle. First uploaded on Tokopedia’s Instagram and X (Twitter) accounts, the jingle proved to be a viral success, prompting the company as well to upload a 1-hour version on its YouTube channel.

While campaign jingles are pretty common, this was the first time Tokopedia tapped a VTuber for its own campaign. Despite the fact that the jingle borrows cues from popular Japanese pop culture trends like anime and VTubers, it is also worth noting that the company took into consideration its roots of local culture relevance to create the new jingle. In turn, this made the campaign more popular especially to the younger consumer demographic while still rooted to be relevant across Indonesians.

MARKETECH APAC caught up exclusively with Jonathan Locanawan, senior lead for social media at Tokopedia, to learn more about the campaign’s creative process, as well as hear his insights on how brands can be authentic in tapping the younger demographic.

Understanding the roots of Tokopedia’s “Waktu Indonesia Belanja (WIB)” campaign

To fully understand how Tokopedia came up with the new Jingle, Locanawan notes that it is worth noting to understand how its yearly 12.12 campaign came to life.

In 2020, the company introduced the monthly shopping festival, “Waktu Indonesia Belanja” (WIB) or Indonesian Shopping Time. Since Waktu Indonesia Belanja was launched to be an inclusive shopping campaign for all Indonesians across the country, they created the WIB campaign jingle with tunes that took major inspiration from ‘Ampar Ampar Pisang’, a South Kalimantan traditional song that would resonate with most Indonesian people.

“The Waktu Indonesia Belanja campaign and its campaign jingle itself were met with high enthusiasm. This became the impetus for Tokopedia’s continued innovation into providing new ways that cater to the ever-evolving preferences of Indonesian consumers. For example, we continuously try to develop a more ‘personal’ approach between Tokopedia and the audience through social media,” he explained.

And while they believe that the monthly campaign was a success, they believed they need to penetrate the much younger audiences, especially those who are active online in social media. This is where the Tokopedia team found out how fans of Japanese pop culture are one of the most active demographics in Indonesia, and yet remains untapped by the market.

“We saw that Japanese popular culture represents a big yet untapped market in Indonesia, especially in the social media sphere. We also learned that Kobo Kanaeru—a female Indonesian
VTuber or virtual content creator who uses an animated avatar—and Harry Citradi or popularly known as Heiakim, are one of the biggest and well-known content creators in Japanese pop culture in Indonesia, especially amongst younger generations including millennials and Gen Z,” he added.

Why collaborating with Kobo Kanaeru and Heiakim is the correct step for the brand’s authenticity

When asked how the jingle came to life, they said that this was done in-house, alongside active participation with Kobo Kanaeru and Heiakim. It is worth noting as well that while they were the ones that provided that initial ideas, the co-creation of the jingle was mostly done by the duo. For Locanawan, this speaks on their mission of always tapping into these collaborations, providing trust to its consumer base.

“Tokopedia always believes that collaboration with partners, including content creators, always goes beyond the numbers of likes and followers. Tokopedia is a business of trust, so to maintain business continuity, maintaining the trust of Indonesians is the most important thing,” he said.

The new 12.12 campaign jingle from Tokopedia, co-created by popular Indonesian VTuber Kobo Kanaeru from Hololive and popular music producer Heiakim

Moreover, it is also worth noting that Tokopedia wanted a fresher take on its campaigns, hence the brand is willing to explore more niche cultural trends to bring colour and life to its campaigns.

“Appealing to the younger audience is definitely one of the main drivers for this collaboration as we continuously try to stay relevant with the Indonesian consumers. However, we were also aiming for distinctiveness. Amongst the sea of heavy promotions from the entire industry, we knew we needed to come up with something special to really stand out from the crowd yet still maintain the local authenticity, sensibility and voice of ‘Tokopedia’, he explained.

Advice on brands on how to ride niche cultural brands to stay authentic

Tokopedia believes that tapping creators that share the same brand value to the company and creative positive influence to the Indonesian society help them create authentic campaigns while also at the same time being at the top of mind of the younger demographic.

According to Locanawan, with Tokopedia willing to explore unique yet relevant niches, the brand has seen greater increase on positive brand mentions, higher views on its social media
accounts, like TikTok; and even noted an increase in better engagement with their audience through Tokopedia’s social media accounts.

“As brand marketers, we need to always be sensitive with the ever changing trends in pop culture to remain relevant. By fully immersing ourselves in the culture and by having the campaign co-created together with the creators, we were able to launch content that effectively rides the wave while maintaining the authenticity and voice of ‘Tokopedia’,” he explained.

Lastly, when asked what should brands do in terms of exuding authenticity to its consumers, Locanawan had this to say: “Regardless of whatever strategy is used, consumer centricity has always been our guiding star—how we can ensure our consumers can benefit from the products, services and partnerships provided. That is what Tokopedia will always do to keep winning the hearts of Indonesians.”