TV Advertising
May 4th, 2007, in News, by PatungTV advertisements must be all Indonesian content.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology (Menkominfo) Sofyan Djalil announced recently a new regulation on the use of domestic resources in the making of advertisements broadcast on television. The regulation stipulates that advertising agencies must use only domestic actors/actress, locations, and everything else that goes into making ads on tv, where possible. bip
No foreign hair in our shampoo ads.
This is to develop professionalism at all levels and sectors with local experts involved in the nation’s advertising industry.
Malaysia has had a law like this for a long time and they have succeeded in developing a domestic advertising industry.
The advertising industry in Indonesia is worth about 40 trillion rupiah annually and is said to be dominated by foreign companies.
Sofyan Djalil.
Television stations must have a statement from advertising agencies stating that the actors, director, crew, and anything used in the making of commercials was Indonesian, where possible. If not, then the ads cannot be shown.
Although there is an obligation to use local resources in advertisements the government will allow advertising agencies to sometimes recruit foreigners, or show foreign-made ads, but only if such ads are in connection with international programming or are for global brands, like Tiger Woods appearing in ads for watches. “Icons” like Tiger Woods were acceptable.
Another example was ads for cigarettes. Locally manufactured cigarettes should be promoted using ads that were filmed in Indonesia, using Indonesian actors, crew and directors, but ads for Marlboro cigarettes could come from overseas, because the “cowboy” person who usually appears in Marlboro ads was an established icon, and there were probably no suitable cowboys in Indonesia who could replace him, said Sofyan.
The Marlboro man can still ride tall in Indonesia.
The new law came into effect from May 1st 2007 although there is a grace period extending to the end of this year. The law only applies to television advertising, not print.
13 Comments on “TV Advertising”
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Chris says:
How about banning Indos (children with one Western parent) from advertisements for skin-whitening cream? That would stop people aspiring to something they can’t actually achieve.
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Janma says:
I remember awhile back they used to have the McGyver show on TV, and the kids loved it. (I loved it too, he was so resourceful in solving problems using stuff lying around.) and then the president (I forget which one, might have been Habibie…) said that only Asian shows should be shown on tv so that Indonesian children might have better morals… so they took Mc Gyver off and put on power rangers… I failed to see the correlation between power rangers and morals. same like trying to ban smack down but still allowing buser and patroli on lunch time tv.
Janma.
*who thinks innovation and adaptation are good things* -
Mohammed Khafi says:
Chris Said:
How about banning Indos (children with one Western parent) from advertisements for skin-whitening cream? That would stop people aspiring to something they can’t actually achieve.
Can’t actually achieve? Just relax the immigration laws and we could have plenty of pale skinned Indonesians!
Beautiful Indo children. Gods way of telling us to marry somebody of a different race?
Peace
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Bas says:
I was waiting for this one!
After the interdiction of buying land and house for women married to a foreigner, the great visa on arrival, the fantastic 50 millions rupiah fine for smoking in prohibited places in Jakarta to stop pollution, the idea of 500 millions tax to marry an Indonesian woman and the registering of printers and photocopy machines to stop fake money making now they come with the prohibition of foreigners in local advertising.
I am waiting for the next joke guys! lol
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I agree with this minsiter, he makes sense from my point of view. Yeah, it’s good to have this kind of regulation so there’re more people in Indonesia can get the benefits. I completely agree. We have one of the biggest advertising industries in the world and there are a lot of foreign agencies exploit our industry making money from our people, at least they should give more respect.
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Ayu says:
Hi All
This is a global world guys.
What ever happened to free trade & open borders.
I think they also failed to mention that (MIM) Made In Malaysia does not exist anymore and was a horrible failure! Ask anyone in the industry there, MIM was a joke!
Ayu
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Dimp says:
So how do you define “icons”, how come the government always manage to create a law that can be interpreted in different ways, I just smell that this is one way for the government officials to get more money. Sorry to sound pessimist but these things happen so many times already.
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Buzz says:
This is a good idea in principle but seems to be manipulated for personal gain. Indonesia already lacks enough recources to service its advertising industry. The process of making commercials is also an ‘artform’ where one person will not be able to offer you the same end product as another. Different styles, different perspecitves, etc all add up to the variety needed by agencies and clients trying to do well for their companies. You can buy locally made clothes but sometimes you may want something by a foriegn designer – a simple metaphor. What the industry should be protected from is the foreign companies who do not invest in Indonesia finacially or the local resources. Money earned here should stay here, within reason.
When the industry develops, there will ne a natural process of selection. After all, its all about demand, supply and the dollars involved. Once it is more cost effective to employ enough local talents who can deliver the same standards as the expats, clients would eventually decide on the future of their suppliers.
All we need is more common sense and less exploitation.
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Piddy says:
This sounds like Canada.
Why is the government even concerning itself with this problem?
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Hi All
By the way MIM was very different (It allowed the expat workforce to stay) they didn’t kick them out as is here in Indonesia. This sounds like another idea manipulated by the government and will eventually screw the industry up! And by 2010 we will have to invite them back after we realise that we do not have the workforce for 4000+ commecials per year. I can count on my hand the amount of local DOP’s & Directors we have (It ain’t magic you cannot teach creativity (especially in 23 months).
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Very true, Ayu. The MIM, although a failure, was implemented to protect a very small domestic market. There are many local directors and DPs but the ones you can count on one hand are the ones who can handle the meetings, objectives and work at a regional standard. The Indonesian industry is by no means small and the development of directors and DP’s is also not going to happen if already low ‘bar’ is lowered even more. I, as I suspect you are, am in the film industry. Stopping this nonsense would rely on the backing from the advertising agencies and clients as they are the ones who will also hurt. There are still plenty of opportunities for the talented local crew to shine. I seriously suspect that all this comes from the people in the industry who neither have the talent nor passion and feel that this is thier only way to achieve personal success. Biapto, for instance, is a corrupt, supremely untalented, hypocrite that seems to be behind this movement. I have had first hand dealings with this man and i would be very sorry to see the industry being led and maniputaled by him. This man built his company by employing foreign crew but because of his ego and lack of talent to support it, many of the foriegn crew refuse to work with him. The only expat directors who work with him are either only in it for the money or desperate for the work. This shows in thier work. As a result, he has lost most of his clients as an agency.
Responding to Guenukanmonyet, make no mistake that around 90 percent of money made in Indonesia, stays in Indonesia. There are a few locally owned production houses with mainly local key crew that compete at the highest level purely on thier own merit. The sad truth is that at this point, there are not many who can do the work at this level and most of the others work on lower budget jobs. But, these jobs are plentiful and actually usually work out just as lucrative finacially.
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Alex says:
Well it seems that the government is making sure that corruption takes place in the advertising industry like it there wasn’t enough everywhere esle already!
Comment on “TV Advertising”.
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I’m not against promoting domestic ads and entertainment, but over-protective will inhibit progress. He should know it better as a minister.
And.
The standard is blurred. There is a huge grey area in between and it’s confusing.
He can suggest media to use more domestic things whenever possible, but a complete restriction to foreign content is absurd.