Sales promotion offers girls much-needed cash

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Vina Cahyadi, 20, a college student, felt guilty every time she spent her semester break doing nothing but shopping.

She finally found the solution when a friend offered her a part-time job as a sales promotion girl (SPG) at last year's Jakarta Motor Show.

"I prefer making money rather than spending it during my semester break," said Vina, who is studying information and technology at Bina Nusantara University.

She earned Rp 2.4 million (about US$250) for nine days of work at the motor show, being paid Rp 275,000 for every six-hour shift she worked.

"Sales promotion girls are always paid well at automotive exhibitions. That is why lots of us love to work as SPGs at these shows," she said.

This semester break, Vina worked as an SPG at the Honda booth at the Gaikindo Auto Expo (GAE), held in the Jakarta Convention Center. The show ended on Sunday.

She worked nine shifts at the exhibition, earning Rp 350,000 per shift.

Another sales promotion girl at the exhibition, Ria Waryati, who was hired by Car and Cars Indonesia (CCI), the dealer for Volkswagen, was paid Rp 300,000 for each of her nine shifts.

Ria earned Rp 2.7 million working at the 10-day exhibition and was also named Miss Gaikindo 2005, for which she received another Rp 1 million.

"I did it for the money. The money is good and I can earn it fast," said the student at Taruma Negara University.

The 2005 Gaikindo Auto Expo generated Rp 1.2 trillion in car transactions. It also was responsible for billions of rupiah of SPG business.

Shinta Indriyani from NZN agency, which was hired by Honda to employ 35 women to work at the Honda booth, said probably billions of rupiah flowed from the expo participants to the SPGs.

"If each booth hired five to 40 women, with payments ranging from Rp 150,000 to Rp 400,000 per shift, you can imagine how much money was circulating for this support business," Shinta said.

Almost all of the 166 stands at the GAE 2005 hired SPGs to help promote their products.

Hary Novianto, the marketing coordinator at CCI, said the money spent hiring SPGs was worth it because they helped give the company a good image, which helped it sell cars.

After all, cars have a lot to do with image, he added.

"Automotive products need to create an image to attract customers. For us, we not only want beautiful women, but also women with brains and poise. That is why we hired university students," he said, adding that the company hired 14 SPGs to work at the VW booth.

Harry said the amount of money spent hiring SPGs was less than 5 percent of the company's revenue at the expo.

According to a report from the expo organizer, VW booked about Rp 3.7 billion in total transactions at the show through the sale of nine cars. (006)