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ALTERNATIVE MEDIA GROUP
Pioneer & Leader Digital Outdoor
Media Advertising in Indonesia
The urban lifestyle of a
megapolitan city such as
Jakarta sees its residents
spending most of their time
not at home watching TV or reading
newspapers, but out of their
homes – out and about in the city,
conducting business as usual.
Most of Jakarta residents would leave their
homes early to beat the morning rush-hour
traffic to get to their office, usually located at
a high-rise building somewhere in town, and
the rest of the day in and out of buildings to
go to meetings or conduct other activities.
The Alternative Media Group (AMG)
sees this urban lifestyle as a window
of opportunity to promote out-of-home
advertising through a series of their services.
Under the group there are four business
units to cover different market segments.
Focus Media Indonesia specializes in
placement of LCD displays at office buidings,
apartments, hotels, hospitals, gyms and
entertainment centers (clubs, bars etc), while
Point of Sale Media Network serves the minimarkets
(currently available in 500 Alfamart
chains and over 130 Circle K outlets). The
Digital Frame Indonesia provides still images
or ‘running slides’ to display inside elevators,
whereas Airport Media Network is intended
for display of promotional materials to
travellers at airports.
According to Davy Makimian, Managing
Director of the AMG, although the current
advertisement spending still sees the
biggest portions going to TV and print media
respectively, the trend is towards digital
media advertising. At the same time, the
small portion for other types of advertising
still does not provide clients with many
alternatives. This condition, paired with
the urban lifestyle of Indonesia’s big cities
residents who spend their day ‘lifecycle’ in
and out of high-rise buildings, mini markets
and airports, makes out-of-home media
advertising a great promotion alternative for
clients which gives a more comprehensive
and effective outreach to their targeted
market. “TV may still be a popular option, but
the audience behaviour is that they tend to
flip through the channels during commercial
breaks due to the variety of channels
currently available”, said Davy.
Research also shows that in general
people spend more time outside their homes
during the day– waiting for the lift on their
way up to the office or visiting a client,
going to the gym, going to mini market,
going to a doctor’s appointment at the
hospital, even when returning home - to
their apartment.
It is this ‘day life-cycle’ that makes the
main target of AMG’s digital outdoor media,
as it gives room for an effective medium
for promotion, reaching a larger number
of target audience. “So long as people still
spend their time outside their homes, outof-home
media advertising will continue to
grow,” said Davy further.
Idle moment when waiting for the
lift, queuing cashier, at boarding lounge is
the targeted display time of AMG’s media
advertising, as the audience has no other
options to ‘kill time’ while waiting and
therefore a repetition of a promotional
display of a product through the LCDs
proves to be an effective reminder of the
products.
Travellers also make a good target
audience, and AMN reaches them through
display at airports. Currently LCD displays
are available at all terminals in Soekarno-
Hatta Airport, and it is expected that by the
end of 2011 it will be available in all major
airports in Indonesia.
The variety of services offered by the
AMG means that clients can have different
options of where they wish to promote their
products and to whom. AMG provides a
unique service to the clients, in which they
provide a recommendation of the most
effective combination of the different media
for different types of brands and products
for different market segments.
When asked about how to choose the
best locations for their display equipments,
Davy explains that in principal the locations
must have a good flow of traffic in order
for the promotion to be effective. In this
regard, Focus Media works with various
groups of property development companies
to provide their services in all high-rise
buildings within the group. One apartment
may have 60,000 tenants, and currently
there are over 100 apartment towers in
Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya – which
shows the enormity of the market. The
exact placement of the equipment is done
following the guidelines from their principal
in China who, within a span of a few years,
managed to be listed on NASDAQ – the
first outdoor media advertising company in
China to do so.
During its initial operaiton, the AMG
was faced with many challenges. The new
concept of media advertising raised a lot
of questions – the most common being
“Is it effective?” This type of skepticism
has encouraged the company to find ways
to convince clients of the effectiveness
of this new media. AMG works with
clients directly and through advertising
agencies to provide information about
how effective this new concept of
BY: RISTI BROPHY. PHOTOS: FOCUS MEDIA.
advertising is. A huge investment was
made to hire third-party consultants to
conduct market research in order to
measure the effectiveness of the media
advertising. Client trust is gained through
a follow up service which includes, afer
a client has done a 3-month campaign,
and in collaboration with various research
institutions, conducting a survey on
the audience with specific questions to
measure the effectiveness.
But proving the effectiveness is just one
of the challenges that AMG experiences.
Another challenge lies in how it can
continue to come up with the latest in
technology to ensure of the effectiveness
of its system and efficiency of its operation.
Another large investment has been made
to upgrade its operating system in all office
buildings to be online. Previously the system
used memory cards with a weekly schedule
to change the display contents. With the
new online system, clients can have more
flexibility in changing their display contents
through the AMG. A company that needs
to change the content of their media
promotion due to an emergency situation
can now do it at ease.
In addition, the online system has made
it easier to provide client with an accurate
log proof, and any problems with the
equipment can be more easily detected and
managed or repaired within 24 hours.
The AMG team also frequently visits
various technology exhibitions around the
world to keep up to date with the latest
advancements and trends in technology to
be applied in Indonesia.
Innovation in services is also given
a great deal of attention, with a service
called ‘brand activation’ being introduced to
complement clients’ media promotion. The
brand activation is done by framing the LCD
screen with the client’s brand, making the
LCDs more eye-catchy to the viewers, i.e.
tenants of the office or apartment buildings.
In future, once the online technology
is implemented, clients may request for
their promotion material to be displayed at
certain time of the day, provided that the
slot is still available.
Clients can also conduct direct selling
to tenants and visitors of the buildings
through AMG. These innovations in services
result in a complete promotion package for
a product, from the display of the ‘branded
frames’ through LCD framing and stickering,
airtime of promotional contents, to
sampling and direct selling of the products.
Davy Makimian sees that there is
still an enormous opportunity for outof-home
advertising in Indonesia, ”And
we will definitely take advantage of this
opportunity by extending the outreach
of our services so that clients’ promotion
can be more effective. We realize that we
may not replace TV and print media, but
our products can complement clients’
promotion and provide them with a holistic
promotion campaign through the variety of
media available in the market.”
AMG’s services are available in Jakarta,
Bandung, Surabaya and Bali, but it will soon
be available in most cities in Indonesia.
Currently, with more than 2600 screens
placed in more than 1,356 prominent
locations, AMG has managed to reach more
than 2,000,000 people on daily basis.
In order to enhance the effectiveness
of out-of-home media advertising, Davy
advises that clients produce promotional
materials which are specifically designed
for this type of platform. “To encourage
our clients, we annually conduct the AMG
Gathering in which we present an award for
the most creative advertisement specifically
produced for our types of media,” said Davy.
For more information on how to
promote your products effectively through
out-of-home media advertising, please visit:
Alternative Media Group
The Capitol Building, 1st Floor
Jl. S. Parman Kav. 73, Slipi
West Jakarta 11410
T: +62-21 2929 7729
F: +62-21 2929 7739
www.focusmedia.co.id
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