Telum caught up with Diah Andrini Dewi from Vero as she shared best practices on how brands could penetrate the Indonesian market, engaging Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) and how to deal with them.

As the largest economy in Southeast Asia according to World Bank, could you share a few tips for brands on building brand positioning if they want to expand to Indonesia?
To successfully expand into the Indonesian market, there are some important aspects that need to be considered, including:

• Understanding the Indonesian market

It’s important for brands to define their target audience to match the brand persona. Besides that, it's also important for brands to learn Indonesian culture, regulations, and local consumer preferences to better understand the market they are expanding into, and to create an effective strategy to communicate and engage with local consumers.

• Brand Uniqueness

Having a unique selling point (USP) is a critical aspect for a brand to highlight its value and differentiate it from the competitors in the market. USP relates to a brand's strength and should be based on what makes the brand, product or its services uniquely valuable to its customers.

• Engage with Relevant Parties

One of the biggest challenges for a brand entering a new market is creating trust amongst its target audience. Therefore, engaging with relevant prominent stakeholders will be a beneficial way for the brand to meet this objective. They can be government representatives, prominent KOL or influencers, organisations / associations.

Vero recently launched TrueVibe, a data-led tool to help optimise the fit between brands and influencers. How will this platform fill the gap in the communications industry?
Influencer marketing in Indonesia has been on the rise in recent years. By using TrueVibe, our team members can identify the right influencers based on six measurable criteria such as influencer reach, interests, engagement, content quality, authority, and values. Within each criterion, there are unique attributes and considerations. This tool focuses on qualitative information, in line with the client's brief or request.

Dealing with influencers has it ups and down. Could you share best practices on when is the right time to involve influencers in your branding / marketing efforts and things to note when dealing with them?
There are a couple things to consider when a brand wants to run influencer campaigns, such as:

• Understanding the influencer landscape

Given the wide range of influencer segments, it is advisable for brands to understand the influencer landscape in Indonesia, then they can select the right influencer who matches their brand persona and campaign purpose to generate the best result and meet their objectives.

• Proper timeline

Providing a proper timeline will give us ample opportunity to anticipate any challenges that might arise during the process, as each influencer will have different timelines in responding to communications, some of them are responsive, while others take quite a long time to respond. By anticipating this, we are able to ensure that we have enough time to find new influencers we want to engage just in case we do not receive a response. Planning is key. It also allows influencers to learn about the brand and the brief properly, so they can create the best content for the brand.

• Clear brief

An influencer brief is a critical document to help brands communicate with influencers. It also helps the influencer to have a better understanding of is being asked within the collaboration and allows them to manage the timeline effectively. Most influencers allow a maximum of two content revisions. If the brief is clearly defined, there should be no need for any added cost due to additional work.

Would you say engaging influencers can replace traditional media relations? Why?
No, I don’t think that it can replace traditional media as it has a different role from traditional media relations. First, influencer management has an objective to create 2-way communication and drive engagement with the relevant target audiences who match the brand’s persona. On the other hand, traditional media relations have an important role in driving massive brand awareness as this is not directed at any particular demographic.

Second, traditional media relations have more space to explore information comprehensively and with much more detail, therefore it has a huge role in building a positive image and brand credibility among the target audience, while influencer marketing has limitations when conveying a message, however, it has interesting elements that can be a call to action to the intended audience.

And lastly, when it comes to publication period, traditional media exists perpetually making it easier for audiences to search for pertinent information without time limits. Meanwhile, influencer marketing has limited time, considering that many influencers take down their collaboration content with brands after a certain time limit. Despite the difference between the two, both can complement each other to create a powerful effect for the brand.