Go-Jek Spins Funny Fictional Politician For Latest Campaign

Instead of conventional announcements and typical advertisements to drum up awareness, Go-Jek has created Aji Mumpong—a fictional politician— to be the face of its latest promos aptly timed to coincide with the Presidential debates on television which began last month. As part of the campaign, Aji Mumpung not only has a X account, but is also plastered on posters outdoors alongside election posters.

Currently, Aji Mumpung’s X account has almost 4,700 followers. Apart from encouraging thriftiness and helping its audience save through discounts, Aji Mumpung has also had tongue-in-cheek conversations with brands and key opinion leaders. For example, he was trending on Valentine’s Day because of his love notes to Bude Sumiyati, a popular viral comedian on social media. Aji Mumpung is also featured in a short video on YouTube that has since accumulated over 43,000 views. The video was also adapted for spots on television and in local cinemas. Digital media buys will kick in at a later stage.

Speaking to online trade publication Marketing Interactive, Go-Jek Indonesia’s creative vice-president and director Bahari Chandra, “We are riding on the social media wave, where people love to share electoral trolls. That strategy creates the conversation by people who thought it was an electoral campaign but realised it was ours. They laughed about it and shared it.”

Since Q117, Go-Jek has invested over US$21m into Sponsorship platforms and leads its category with a 49.6% share. Naturally, this spend has been focused on Indonesia – with the US$10.3m deal backing Liga 1, the nation’s top tier pro football league – being its biggest so far.

But, what has caught our eye is Go-Jek’s dive into the content production landscape in the past year; securing an in-house studio, partnerships with Vice and local content creators as well as acquiring a stake in Kumparan, a local digital media start-up. The brand’s campaigns have always been inspired by pop culture, let it be a localised spoof of Godzilla or music videos.

Go-Jek Indonesia’s senior vice-president of creative VJ Anand added, “I think Go-Jek as a brand is so intertwined with culture and society that we, in the marketing and creative team, have to constantly come up with work that does justice to the brand and the people. The work done by our team is not just insightful and topical, but brings out Go-Jek’s unique personality.”