Place ads in segmented media to reach their target: Experts

JAKARTA (JP): The president of the Indonesian chapter of the International Advertising Association, Yanti Sugarda, advised advertisers on Thursday to choose a medium which had a clear market segment.

Speaking at a marketing and advertising seminar here, Yanti named The Jakarta Post and Femina women's magazine as media with the clearest market segments.

She said the Post was a very suitable medium to advertise automotive, airline, tourist and banking products and services while Femina was suitable for advertising fashion, cosmetics and household appliances.

"Advertisers do not want to waste their money by discovering their messages don't reach their targeted consumers," she told the seminar organized by the Gramedia Group.

Yanti predicted that advertising expenditures by Indonesian companies would drop by at least 50 percent this year as most local companies here had reduced spending in advertising.

She predicted that advertising expenditure going to newspapers would drop to Rp 1.41 trillion (US$128 million) this year from Rp 2.68 trillion last year.

Similarly, she said, ad spending in magazines was likely to drop to Rp 775 billion from Rp 1.54 trillion, and in radio would drop to Rp 126 billion from Rp 311 billion last year.

Yanti did not give a figure for ad spending going to television, which normally takes the largest portion of all ad expenditure.

She added that the advertising business in Indonesia would continue to have a gloomy outlook next year due to uncertainty in the country's economic and political climate.

Meanwhile, marketing and advertisement expert Rhenald Kasali from the University of Indonesia echoed Yanti's suggestion and said that advertisers had to know exactly what and who their market segment was.

After identifying their market segment, their advertisements should also be appropriate for the targeted segment.

Studying such market segmentation was necessary, Rhenald said, because the prolonged economic crisis had brought about changes in market segments due to changes in consumers' spending habits.

Rhenald said the crisis had brought down those in the middle class to the lower segment primarily because they had lowered their spending standards to cope with the worsening economic situation.

"There is a down shifting in the market. People have changed their habits from heavy users to light users. They also look to cheaper brands because they have to adjust their spending to be more in line with their economic situation," Rhenald said at the seminar.

"Middle-class people, for example, are now shopping in traditional markets instead of in malls, using traditional medicines instead of modern medicines, and buying shampoo in small plastic packs instead of in bottles," he said. (rid)