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Jakarta Post

First family exposure puts some brands ahead of the rest

For the grandchildren: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo buys gifts for his two grandchildren at Tunjungan Plaza shopping complex in Surabaya, East Java, during his visit to the city in November 2018

Riska Rahman (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Mon, August 19, 2019

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First family exposure puts some brands ahead of the rest

F

or the grandchildren: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo buys gifts for his two grandchildren at Tunjungan Plaza shopping complex in Surabaya, East Java, during his visit to the city in November 2018.(Kompas.com/Fabian Januarius Kuwado)

Many may remember images of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo walking out of a children’s goods store at the Tunjungan Plaza mall in Surabaya, East Java, late last year with white paper bags in his hands prominently displaying the store’s logo, Mothercare.

The scene was immortalized on his personal Instagram page not long after the rare shopping time. “These are gifts for [my grandchildren] Jan Ethes and Sedah Mirah that I bought in a mall in Surabaya: children’s clothes, jackets and some baby clothes,” read the caption on the November 2018 photo, which later garnered 427,179 likes on the social media platform.

The post may have benefitted Jokowi — who was then campaigning to run for his second term as president — as it shows a loving grandfather image to the public, but it has also benefitted the Mothercare brand and its company, Kanmo Group.

Founder and managing director Hitesh Bharwani told The Jakarta Post last Friday that the unexpected visit was “the proudest moment” of his and his team’s career, as it had helped increase public awareness of the brand.

He also said that the post increased Mothercare Indonesia’s brand engagement with its customers. This is backed by the number of likes on the two posts on its official Instagram account, each of which garnered more than 5,000 likes, way above the typical number of likes of around 100 to 500 on posts the account received.

Mothercare Indonesia is not the first brand Jokowi and his family “accidentally” catapulted to fame.

Brands from Jakarta-based shoemaker BRO.DO to Spanish fast fashion retailer Zara, for example, have benefitted from the first family factor, as the Jokowis were photographed wearing their products, prompting fans of the family and Jokowi supporters to follow suit.

Digital marketing expert Yuswohady told the Post on Wednesday that such an effect would always follow them due to their status as public figures, making their fans keen to copy what they were wearing, as they wanted to be associated with the family.

Other than being idolized by millions of people in the country, he said, the president’s family also brought what he called “organic influence” to their audience.

“People know that Jokowi and his family are not paid by the brands to promote them,” he explained. “This means people know that their reviews are genuine, and that makes people want to wear the same brands even more.”

Despite the fact that Jokowi’s daughter, Kahiyang Ayu, had previously worked with Mothercare, Bharwani said Jokowi’s visit completely surprised him, his team and all of the store’s sales assistants, as the company had never had any deals with him and nobody knew he planned to stop by and shop.

“[The visit] shows that even the president himself recognizes the quality and value of the Mothercare brand,” he said during an interview session with the Post in Jakarta, prompting the company to open Mothercare’s biggest flagship store in Southeast Asia in Jakarta on July 31.

However, he added, the brand’s positive image was not the only reason why it opened its biggest store in the country, as he felt Indonesia was the perfect market to do so due to its high birthrate.

The National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) estimated earlier this year that about 4.8 million babies were born every year in the country. This, coupled with a change in customers’ behavior and the country’s bright macroeconomic outlook, encouraged Kanmo Group to expand the Mothercare and its other brands this year.

“Parents nowadays tend to indulge their children, because very often, children become the projection of themselves,” he explained. Such a phenomenon, he continued, was fueled by Indonesian parents’ raising income, giving them more disposable income to spend on luxurious goods for their children, and also for themselves.

That being said, Bharwani revealed that his company planned to open 10 more stores this year, even after the firm had opened 20 stores thus far since the beginning of 2019, ranging from lifestyle brands for children to those for adults.

He also said that the company was seeking to bring new brands to the country this year. Although he refused to reveal the names of the brands, he said the brands would vary to meet the needs of different customers.

Starting its presence in Indonesia with the brand Mothercare in 2005, the company now has 296 stores across 16 cities of the country.

It also brings new brands that cater to the middle-to-high-income segment, which includes brands such as educational toy store Early Learning Center, fashion brands like Coach, Kate Spade and Thomas Sabo, children’s fashion Justice and Gingersnaps, and footwear Havaianas and Nike Young Athletes.

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