Indosat Ooredoo settles creative pitch

Indonesia’s digital telco company Indosat Ooredoo has appointed Mata Angin as its integrated creative agency. This comes after a pitch that was first called earlier in 2019, which saw agencies from major holding groups in Indonesia take part. 

In a statement to Marketing Interactive, the brand notes that "the appointment is quite unpredictable, considering that Mata Angin is the only medium sized local agency competing in an open and competitive pitch against some of the most prominent multinational agencies." But, the agency was led by 100% young local experts who "had an extensive range of achievements in handling multi industry brands including eCommerce, FMCG, cigarettes, and banks."

Mata Angin becomes the first local agency to manage full integrated creative services for a telco company such as Indosat Ooredoo. The telco also said appointing Mata Angin comes in line with Indosat’s new marketing strategy that focuses more on regionalisation which requires a closer engagement with local markets. Fahroni Arifin, Indosat’s SVP brand management and strategy said the telco is starting 2020 with a fresher brand look, but in parallel it also looks to reach closer to its young audiences across the country. “Mata Angin is capable in providing unique and inspiring creative approaches that are easy to understand by Gen Y-Z. Their roots in local ground is something that a global brand like Indosat Ooredoo needs in order to win in the vast Indonesian market,” he added.

Meanwhile, Yohannes Muliady, executive creative director of Mata Angin said the agency’s unique approach through championing local taste of creativity mixed with strong understanding of local market proved to be valuable assets. “It will not be an easy job for us considering 60M subscribers that Indosat Ooredoo has, but we believe that that our expertise will contribute significantly to the new brand approach of IM3 Ooredoo,” he added. Mata Angin has previously worked with an extensive range of clients, across eCommerce, FMCG, cigarettes, and banks. These include blibli.com, Grand Indonesia, L.A. Lights, J&T Express and BCA bank, among others.

Most recently, Indosat’s IM3 Ooredoo has been ramping up its marketing efforts to appeal to young Indonesians. The telco launched a “Collabonation” campaign to boost creative spirit among young Indonesians. The campaign also made use of Twitter's recently launched ad product "Promoted Trend Spotlight", which has been made available in 14 countries including six countries in the APAC region (Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea). According to a post on Twitter's official blog, Promoted Trend Spotlight allows brands to use video formats on Twitter, while gaining maximum visibility in the Explore menu. 

Meanwhile, in June 2019, Indosat Ooredoo appointed PHD Indonesia as its media agency. The decision sees the Omnicom Media Group entity take on the full media brief for Indosat which has over 53.3 million subscribers. The appointment length is for a period of two years, with the option to renew for an additional year before the next review. PHD’s appointment was the result of the agency’s unique talent and bespoke approach for managing the telco’s traditional and digital media duties.