Background
Indonesia is a country with the largest Muslim population in the world. A large part of the middle class is the Muslim community, whose economic development is very fast and dynamic. According to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the Indonesian Muslim middle class reached 64.5 million in 2020, accounting for 27.5 percent of the 233 million Indonesian Muslim population. Halal values for Muslim lifestyles necessitate a new choice in products and services to complement the values they adhere to.
In 2017, MEDINA emerged as the first MUI halal-certified plasticware brand in Indonesia, with middle-class Muslims as their target market. According to MEDINA, a transfer of chemical elements in plasticware dyes can happen to food. Thus, the use of non-halal coloring materials could potentially contaminate the halalness of the food we consume. MEDINA wanted to emphasize this message and market its products to middle-class Muslims, with the target market being women and mothers.
Challenge
The middle-class Muslim community in Indonesia had already been concerned about various halal-certified products and services, especially consumer products and financial services. However, education about halal plasticware was still a challenge, as many were not familiar with the importance of halal food containers. Another challenge was that MEDINA wanted the education on halal plasticware to start being carried out through digital campaigns, using social media as the main platform. As a new brand, MEDINA needed a comprehensive strategy to remove the high entry barrier.
Strategic Solution
Konner Advisory was entrusted by MEDINA to help with the initial product campaign for six months, and we realized this was very challenging. The first step we did was to understand MEDINA’s main target market and “search” for its presence on social media. In addition, we decided to carry out a community marketing strategy by directly selecting a specific target market for more effectiveness and cost efficiency. After going through the process, we found a community that perfectly matched the characteristics MEDINA was looking for.
This community was a group of middle-class Muslim women or mothers with a hobby of photography—food photography in particular—who were digitally savvy or active on social media. This community was quite large, with members spread across various cities in Indonesia and abroad. This community was strictly implementing Sharia rules based on the photos they took, and interestingly, in-person meet-ups were regularly held to maintain their bond. Seeing this opportunity, we finally proposed the “Medina Inspirational Talk” activity by involving this particular community as a partner. The activation program with this community ran efficiently and successfully reached 25 cities in Indonesia in just 6 months.
We also applied a growth hacking strategy by integrating marketing content on social media, publishing educational articles on websites, and running offline-to-online (O2O) activation programs. MEDINA not only had the chance to educate the community about halal plasticware and the brand, but they also received lots of interesting product photos produced by the participants at each “Medina Inspirational Talk” event.
This digital campaign was considered effective and efficient, as MEDINA received: (a) product photos taken by its customers in the form of user-generated content (UGC); (b) an organic but significant increase in awareness with a great number of photos uploaded by the community; and (c) an efficient direct outreach program as the community members in various cities directly assisted in organizing the event.
Result
The results of the organic campaign performed for six months:
Participants from Specific Target Market
0
Product Photos from Participants
0
Increase in Social Media Engagement
0
%
Organic Page Views
0
+
Photo Submissions
+
0