Taru Martani uses Sultan's legacy to sell products
Taru Martani uses Sultan's legacy to sell products
Slamet Susanto, Yogyakarta
Cigars are associated with high-class society through films, art and advertising. They comprise a particular taste, which is not for everyone, but for connoisseurs a fine cigar is second to nothing. Marketing cigars could be compared to selling fashion.
Cigar company PD Taru Martani, which is owned by the Yogyakarta local administration, is of that belief. The company's president director Bimo N. Wartono said that it was not the quantity of cigars sold but the image and prestige of the company that mattered.
Luckily, the company is aware of its most valuable assets: the history of its cigars and the city in which it operates.
According to Bimo, producing a product while keeping in mind tradition and the product's heritage would ensure that consumers warmed to it.
The company is currently working on a new line: Cigars of the Sultan's taste.
"We will borrow the prestige and charisma of the palace. This will be no ordinary cigar. It will bear a taste and quality like no other," said Bimo.
Located in Baciro, the country's first cigar company was established in Bulu, near Jl. Magelang in 1918 by Dutch businessman Eugun Migude. It is now named Taru Martani 1918 Cigar Van Java.
In 1921, the factory moved to Jl. Argolobang 2A and was named N.V. Negresco. During the Japanese occupation of 1942, the company was renamed Jawa Tobacco Kojo. Later, in 1945, the company was handed back to the government and the late Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX called it Taru Martani, which in Javanese refers to the natural process of leaves growing.
"To earn more, we don't need to produce more. That is our new paradigm of management. We no longer depend on the quantity but on quality," Bimo told a recent panel discussion on heritage conservation and economic development here.
Last year, for example, with a production volume of some one million rolls of cigars -- which was 80 percent higher than that of the previous year -- the company earned a net profit of over Rp 2.4 billion. The previous year's net profit was some Rp 2.2 billion.
In the future, Taru Martani has pledged to become a living museum, a boutique cigar manufacturer and a landmark heritage site in Baciro region.
"The older a cigar manufacture is, the higher the value of its intangible assets," Bimo said, explaining why he considered heritage factors so important for the company's future.