Tag: Indonesia

Indonesia – Indonesian rural-focused social commerce startup, Dagangan, has introduced its new online merchandise shopping services, with the aim to fulfil primary needs for rural communities of shopping from home and have their groceries delivered within 24 hours without postage via its local stock centres. 

According to Dagangan, amidst Indonesia being one of the largest economies in Southeast Asia, two to three out of five Indonesians live in rural areas. With this, the social commerce platform’s strategy is to focus its operations in rural Indonesia to give them a strong position in the supply value chain. Dagangan offers a profitable option to many, especially for people living in villages and other rural areas, where they have to travel up to two to three hours just to shop for what they need in the nearest town. 

Understanding the lack of access to basic needs in rural areas, Dagangan has implemented a hubs-and-spoke model that allows them to establish a synergy with community leaders, local SMEs, and entrepreneurs, which play key roles in interacting within the communities.

Moreover, the new business model enables communities to benefit from their participation as distributors, resellers, or agents of various primary goods, and even as shop owners or retail buyers. Dagangan also supports community empowerment in entrepreneurship by facilitating high-quality local products to access a wider market.

Ryan Manafe, Dagangan’s CEO and co-founder, shared that Dagangan is expected to accelerate economic equality by paving ways for rural communities to access their basic needs in an efficient manner.

“They now have the same opportunity as urban communities, completely meeting their daily needs affordably, without incurring additional shipping costs,” said Manafe.

Meanwhile, Maha Willy Chandra, Dagangan’s COO and co-founder, said the hubs-and-spoke operating model helps large producers, both national and international, reach areas that were previously difficult to enter due to logistical limitations.

“Currently, we have more than 40 hubs (stock centres) spread over several points in rural areas so that the delivery to customers will be faster and cheaper,” added Chandra.

Dagangan said that it will continue to expand its operations, both in Java and outside of the island, so that more rural communities in the country can benefit from its services.

Indonesia – Indonesia’s Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform Kredivo has partnered with lifestyle retailer Mitra Adiperkasa (MAP) to enable customers to shop for high-quality products from global brands, while maintaining healthy cash flow by paying them over time with low-interest rates.

MAP, which has been operating in Indonesia for more than 27 years, fulfils customers’ demand in lifestyle and food and beverages through its omnichannel chains across the country. 

Through the new partnership, Kredivo can now be used as a payment method at MAP retailers, including Zara, Pandora, Bershka, Mango, and Calvin Klein, as well as Lacoste, and Marks & Spencer, amongst many others. 

Lily Suriani, Kredivo’s general manager, shared that the partnership with MAP is an important step for them to accommodate users’ needs and to realize their commitment to making it easier for them to shop at the best retailers with a fast, convenient, and affordable payment option.

“We are very pleased to offer this new access point to our customers and we are excited to partner with MAP, Indonesia’s number one and largest lifestyle company that has 2,600 outlets in 81 cities across Indonesia,” said Suriani.

The integration between Kredivo and MAP is now live as of 25 January 2022. Kredivo said that it is set to expand its services and collaborate with other MAP brands in the future.

Jakarta, Indonesia – As the music genre of K-pop continues to be more appreciated globally, thanks in part to the prominence of K-pop groups on Twitter, more and more K-pop fans take to Twitter to show support and appreciation for the genre. In 2021, the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia ranked first in countries globally talking about K-pop on the platform, according to the latest insights released by the social media platform itself.

Indonesia also ranked first in the countries globally who have the most active K-pop fans in the platform. It bested other countries in Asia such as the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and even South Korea itself in regards to online engagement related to K-pop.

In terms of most-tweeted K-pop groups globally, K-pop boy band BTS ranked first, followed by fellow K-pop boy bands NCT, ENHYPEN, EXO, and K-pop girl group BLACKPINK. Meanwhile, in terms of emerging K-pop groups, ENHYPEN ranked first, followed by TOMORROW x TOGETHER, TREASURE, aespa, and ITZY.

For YeonJeong Kim, head of global K-pop partnerships at Twitter, as the global consumption of Korean content grows, they look forward to seeing even more diverse conversations on Twitter and providing more content you can see exclusively on the platform in 2022.

“In 2021, with BTS and NCT leading the conversation, we could also see an increase in conversation related to rising artists such as ENHYPEN, aespa, and ITZY. But beyond K-pop, we’ve also seen discussions about Korean content across the board on Twitter growing with K-pop fans talking about not just their favorite music, performances, concerts, and daily lives, but showing increasing interest in dramas and webtoons with K-pop soundtracks or starring K-pop idols,” Kim stated.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Tokocrypto, a local-based crypto asset digital exchange, has announced that it will be joining with BRI Ventures, an Indonesian venture capital firm backed by government bank Bank BRI. The collaboration, known as the ‘Tokocrypto Sembrani Blockchain Accelerator (TSBA)’, is set to help emerging blockchain projects and startups scale up with the support of technology, community networks, and also allow them gain access to funding opportunities.

Participants and startups will be provided with the necessary tools on fundraising, team culture, blockchain development, listing advisory and tokenomics to develop the skills required to make a mark within the blockchain industry. 

The program seeks to onboard 8-10 emerging Indonesian blockchain startups into the first cohort. Registration closes on 10 February, and the program will kick off on the 21st of February.

Pang Xue Kai, chief executive officer at Tokocrypto, said, “Southeast Asian enterprises today are leveraging the power of blockchain technology and are looking for ways to disrupt industries. We are launching this partnership with the goal to put Indonesia in the centre of the blockchain map and give the Indonesian blockchain communities the opportunity to grow with the catalyst of collaboration.”

Tokocrypto Sembrani Blockchain Accelerator will incubate projects and elevate them across 4 primary pillars: branding and marketing, investment strategies, investment landscape tactics and access to fundraising opportunities. The central nexus of TSBA which connects the 4 pillars of the accelerator program is the networking and mentoring support of mentors from the local blockchain scene such as Nicko Widjaja, chief executive officer at BRI Ventures); Pang Xue Kai, CEO at Tokocrypto; Teguh Kurniawan Harmanda, COO at Tokocrypto; Lai Chung Ying, CSO at Tokocrypto) and Nanda Ivens, CMO at Tokocrypto; as well as mentors from the global blockchain scene.

Indonesia – Indonesian software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Lummo, previously known as BukuKas, has raised US$80m in its Series C round of funding. The funding round was led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India, and was also participated by other global tech and e-commerce investors such as CapitalG, the independent growth fund of Google parent company Alphabet, NuvemShop CEO Santiago Sosa, and former Lazada CEO Max Bittner.

Lummo was launched in December 2019 as BukuKas, a bookkeeping app for MSMEs, with the objective of empowering and digitizing them. It later expanded its business by launching TOKKO, an online direct-to-consumer commerce builder.

Krishnan Menon, Lummo’s CEO and founder, commented that they are delighted to welcome their new investors to support the startup’s journey to digitise and accelerate the growth of MSMEs

“We offer entrepreneurs and brands the opportunity to sell directly to their customers, and enable them to build a strong and distinctive brand online using LummoSHOP,” said Menon.

Meanwhile, John Curtius, Tiger Global’s partner, said, “We are thrilled to be a part of Lummo’s mission to empower aspiring entrepreneurs and brands to accelerate their growth and to serve their customers by giving them the best technology and partner solutions. Digital-led economic growth, especially in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, is a key investment focus for us.” 

In addition to the funding announcement, Lummo’s flagship product, TOKKO, has been rebranded to LummoSHOP, aimed at cementing its status as a leading software solution to entrepreneurs and brands in unlocking and maximising their business potential through online commerce. 

The name Lummo is derived from ‘lumen’, and the Latin word for ‘light’. This is in line with the company’s ambition to shine the spotlight on entrepreneurs and brands, enabling them to discover all possibilities to develop their business through its D2C SaaS stack. 

Along with the rebranding to LummoSHOP, the company aims to strengthen its direct-to-consumer product offerings through technological innovations like chat commerce, catalogue integration, custom domains, multiple platform management, and personalized features for branding, amongst others.

LummoSHOP’s D2C model ensures a stronger relationship between the merchant and the customer with no third party sitting in the middle. The solution will allow merchants to access their customers’ records, purchase history, and other analytics that are crucial for building and growing an engaged customer base. 

“LummoSHOP will empower them to be strong businesses and at the same time remain customer-focused, which in turn will help manage their customer base and increase repeat business,” said Menon.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Starbucks in Indonesia has recently launched its newest coffee experience centre at the Starbucks Dewata Coffee Sanctuary in Bali, Indonesia. Said new experience centre focuses on the celebration of Indonesia’s rich coffee heritage and showcasing how the roasting process elevates the unique quality and diverse flavour profiles of Indonesian coffees.

The centre spans over 140 square meters with designs inspired by rich copper tones and traditional Balinese Besek baskets, made with the same materials as the Starbucks Dewata Coffee Sanctuary including terracotta brickwork and terrazzo floors. Customers visiting the new centre can learn about the art and science behind sourcing, roasting and brewing coffee, and explore coffee through interactive workshops hosted onsite.

For Anthony McEvoy, leader of Starbucks at PT Sari Coffee Indonesia, as they celebrate the company’s 20th year of retail presence in the country, the Dewata Coffee Experience Center amplifies their leadership and passion for coffee, as well as their commitment to Indonesia’s rich coffee culture.

“Aligned with Starbucks global mission to inspire and nurture the human spirit, the Dewata Coffee Experience Center is also an immersive coffee destination that is thoughtfully designed to celebrate the connection between our customers, communities and coffee farmers that is an essential part in serving our coffee,” McEvoy said.

He added, “We believe that by highlighting the dedication and care involved in coffee’s creation, the more appreciation others will have to ensure its future, and we want to reaffirm our commitment to supporting coffee farmers in Indonesia by working closely with the Farmer Support Center to ensure a sustainable future of coffee for all.”

At the centre, customers can learn about Starbucks responsible sourcing practices, and how the company is working with Indonesian coffee farmers at the Farmer Support Center in North Sumatra to ensure sustainable farming practices that improve the resilience, quality, and size of harvests.

Meanwhile, Tim Scharrer, managing director and vice president of Starbucks coffee and cocoa, commented, “As one of the world’s leading coffee-growing regions, Indonesia has played a unique and important role in Starbucks’ journey since the beginning. Starbucks has sourced high-quality Arabica coffee from Indonesia for 50 years and is proud to be one of the largest buyers of Indonesian coffee in the world today. At the same time, we remain dedicated to working with farmers in Indonesia to bring responsibly-sourced Indonesian coffee to the world.”

The one-storey building welcomes everyone from Monday to Sunday from 8 am to 10 pm, with capacity up to 30 seats.

Jakarta, Indonesia — RedDoorz, Southeast Asian hotel management and booking platform, has selected Haptik, the conversational AI platform under Jio Platforms,  to revamp its customer experience. With the help of Haptik’s multilingual AI Chatbot, RedDoorz aims to provide personalized customer support to its Southeast Asian customers across its website, mobile apps, and the latest messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.

Anila Rao, vice president for APAC at Haptik, commented on the partnership, saying, “RedDoorz has been a pioneer in Southeast Asia’s hospitality sector. Haptik will be utilizing its vast expertise and experience of working with global hospitality brands to create a world-class chatbot for RedDoorz to achieve its goal of enhancing customer experience.”

Haptik powers conversations that ignite user engagement and provide on-demand support. With Haptik, RedDoorz plans to improve customer query resolution by increasing first-time resolution and reducing average customer handling time for support queries in English, Bahasa Indonesia, and Tagalog.

Meanwhile, Shanketh Ragunath, product manager for CX at RedDoorz, shared that the hospitality brand has been looking for an AI chatbot vendor to provide a faster response to its customers and keep up with its rapidly expanding business. 

“The company has evaluated various vendors from around the world for their capabilities and affordability. Haptik has demonstrated good natural-language understanding and swift responses across our languages of interest. Their pricing is affordable and transparent, and their team is very amiable. We are hoping to build a successful partnership with Haptik,” Ragunath said.

For over the past year, MARKETECH APAC has dissected and presented numerous comprehensive reports to share the latest trends, issues, and insights pertinent to the industry. 

Out of all of them, it is InMobi’s ‘Mobile Gaming Through the Pandemic and Beyond in Southeast Asia 2021’ that comes out as our Insight of The Year. 

Released in June 2021, the SEA report takes a specific interest in the state of mobile gaming in Indonesia. Armed with fresh findings on the demographic, the report has served to be a guiding light on how to engage mobile gamers in the market, and what the best approaches are to draw their attention to the brand. 

Here’s our interview with Rishi Bedi, InMobi’s vice president and GM for Southeast Asia, who further built on the report’s insights, sharing with us how brands can leverage their presence across Indonesian gamers and the best strategies they can employ to stay ahead of the game. 

The report stated that 46% of the respondents have tried mobile gaming for the first time. What does this say about the future of mobile gaming in Indonesia?

As people are increasingly on-the-go, mobile gaming is predicted to become one of the chosen sources of entertainment and relaxation. Mobile games have created a virtual environment for players to compete, play together, and connect online. With 125.6% mobile connections (compared to the total population) in 2021, mobile gaming is expected to continue to grow in popularity among Indonesians in the next year. This is evident as the time spent grew by 1.5X within the first 9 months of 2021 compared to 2020. Even in a post-pandemic world, we expect people will still turn to mobile gaming apps to make new friends, relax and pass time. Because of the depth and diversity in mobile gaming, this space has the potential to become the most preferred channel for brands to engage with consumers at scale.

The report also found that 2/3 of the respondents say that they prefer to watch ads to progress in games. What does this say about the emerging trend of advertising across mobile games?

Based on the results so far, it is becoming clear that the ad experience offered by mobile gaming apps can be highly effective, making it an ideal space for advertisers to focus their attention. A study by The Drum and YouGov found that the click-through rates (CTR) for ads inside mobile games are 50% above average while 37% of people who play games have bought something as a result of an in-game ad. 

Hence it is no surprise that, compared to the previous year, we saw a 10x growth in video advertising on gaming apps in 2021. And we believe this is just the start. Moving forward, we expect to see mature brands to keep gaming as a key element of their mobile marketing strategy and leverage its various placements to drive results.

In what ways can brands leverage their presence across gamers in Indonesia?

The appetite for games in Indonesia could present major opportunities for advertisers to secure the attention of an engaged audience. But brands must be strategic about how they do it. 

Mobile comes first. About 46% of Indonesians explored mobile gaming for the first time during the height of the pandemic to seek entertainment, relaxation, or even make new friends. 

We are also seeing that mobile gamers are even more receptive and welcoming to ads when these are relevant and offer some value exchange. Hence, brands in industries pertinent to gamers such as lifestyle, e-commerce, retail, electronics, and other games could potentially engage with gamers by delivering ads that offer in-game rewards or allow players to achieve greater progress in the game. 

Brands should also be strategic in mapping the audience with the gaming category. According to our report, Gen Zs and Gen Xs tend to prefer casual games, while millennials prefer stimulation and action-packed games. Aside targeting, the brand should also consider leveraging the various innovative mobile-first formats and full-screen immersive experiences – much in line with their state of mind as a gamer – to engage them.

What are the strategies brands should employ to win this large market of gamers?

In my experience, gamers in Indonesia are familiar with ads and prefer to watch them over and above paying money when looking to progress in a game or in exchange for a benefit. Ad recall is also very high in this space, especially when ads are about a topic of interest. Hence brands must be strategic in leveraging the right data to enhance the personalization and relevance when delivering ads in gaming apps. 

Moreover, specific ad formats or placements can be used to maximize the time spent with the gamer and increase engagement. Full-screen video ads within gaming environments can be a great way to engage users. They occur during a natural break in the gameplay and create no interruptions in the gameplay. These ads should be horizontal or vertical, based on the orientation the games are played, making it easy for brands to leverage or transform existing core assets. Rewarded video is another excellent way to engage with mobile gamers who are highly engaged and receptive, as they look to advance in the game without having to pay. 

Brands that have completely moved to programmatic media buying can also potentially access and engage with these mobile gamers based on their specific campaign objectives. For example, they can set up different segments like users with higher engagement rates, viewability, completion rates, or maximum reach.

This recognition is based on the results of Google Analytics on the most-read stories of 2021 with editorial validation on the significance of a leader’s contribution, campaigns results, and overall impact.

Indonesia – Creative and communications network dentsu in APAC has appointed Prakash Kamdar to be its new CEO for dentsu Indonesia. This is in addition to his current role as CEO of dentsu Singapore. Kamdar commences the role in February this year.

The appointment follows the step down of former CEO Maya Watono who will be leaving the business at the end of January to take on a role in a newly established holding company for Indonesia’s State-Owned Enterprises. 

During Kamdar’s stint at dentsu, he first held the position of CEO at Isobar Singapore, where he took the business from strength to strength prior to being promoted to CEO of dentsu Singapore in 2019. In the Singapore role, dentsu said he has successfully led the agency through a significant turnaround, having worked with various clients including Standard Chartered, PayPal, Starhub, Intel, and Mastercard, as well as Salesforce, among others.

Wendy Clark, the global CEO of dentsu international, believes that Kamdar is a highly-regarded digital native leader and his authentic management approach has guided the Singapore teams through the pandemic, resulting in the country’s highest-ever client satisfaction ratings with the business on track to return to pre-pandemic growth levels by the close of 2021. 

Commenting on his appointment, Kamdar said, “I have big shoes to fill and this is a challenge for the new year that I can’t wait to get started on.”

Dentsu APAC has also announced the recent promotion of Wisnu Satya Putra to CEO of Creative at dentsu Indonesia, and Arshad Rahman to CEO of CXM at dentsu Indonesia, which are said to be pivotal to dentsu APAC’s strategy to lead the Indonesia team into its next phase of growth.

“Together with industry veterans Wisnu and Arshad, they [will] bolster the leadership team and bring fresh perspectives and a wealth of experience to the business,” said Clark.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Independent marketing cloud company InMobi and Indonesian telecom provider Telkomsel have announced a partnership together to aid in improving the mobile marketing experience for brands in Indonesia. Said partnership brings together the big data capabilities from Telkomsel and the end-to-end marketing solutions of InMobi to help brands deliver personalized communications at scale.

Through the partnership, Telkomsel’s mobile-first audiences will be available for programmatic media buying on the InMobi Exchange. The partnership also gives brands the ability to run surveys on Telkomsel audiences and deepen their understanding of consumer perceptions and preferences. The insights will be powered by InMobi’s AI-driven mobile-first consumer intelligence platform Pulse.

Rishi Bedi, VP and GM for Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea at InMobi stated that brands can activate both branding and performance campaigns, while leveraging InMobi’s deep programmatic expertise, creative capabilities, and transparent technology to try to engage and acquire their customers.

“The third-party cookie deprecation is expected to bring about a fundamental change in the digital marketing ecosystem. And, despite the delay in the final enforcement, we are seeing marketers starting to focus on building sustainable consumer marketing strategies. Through this partnership, brands will be able to target pristine, always-on Telkomsel audiences programmatically on InMobi Exchange via their preferred DSP platform,” Bedi said.

He added, “As mobile continues to dominate in terms of media time spent and grow rapidly as the preferred channel for commerce, we are doubling down on our focus on helping brands enhance their mobile marketing maturity. This partnership is another step in our endeavour to ensure that brands find solutions for the new world and are able to transition seamlessly into the era of privacy-first marketing.”

Meanwhile, Rangga Gandina, GM for data solutions business and partnerships at Telkomsel, commented that they are excited to help brands unravel the potential of their own big data and enhance every brand’s consumer insight and mobile audience strategy. He added that while consumers are completely mobile-first today, brands are yet to get their audience strategy right for this medium.

“The Telco big data combines contextual consumer insights from Telkomsel’s owned and operated platforms and other services to power deterministic audiences behavior with customer-centricity insight, in a privacy-compliant manner according to Indonesian regulation,” Gandina said.

InMobi previously announced its partnership with Gojek, a mobile on-demand services and payments platform, to enhance advertising, consumer intelligence and identity resolution for brands in Southeast Asia.