Indonesian Advertizing

It’s amazing how the general themes of commercials are so universal around the world. The idea that a product can save you or at least your image from embarrassment is something that is fairly common. “Oh save me, I’ve got yellow teeth, toenail fungus, a junky car, clothing from last month’s fashion”, says the average person (or at least that is what we’re told the average person thinks). Surprise surprise, the average person gets a product or service the commercial that seems to say, “Never fear, this will save you!” There are plenty of examples of this in print and on screen that I come into contact with while living here in Minnesota, but I decided to reach back to where I used to live for an example. After seeing this perhaps we can appreciate the similarities that consumers of other places face in the marketing world. So I’m going to take a little trip back to Indonesia (I lived there for a while), and we’ll start with a personal product whose name is ubiquitous through all of Asia, Sunsilk Shampoo.


So now that you’ve seen the commercial let me translate the words that were sequenced to the action. I must confess I had a good bit of help from a friend; over the years my Indonesian has collected some mental dust. So, the young man strokes the woman’s hair and the female voice says, “Hey, who knew? My anti dandruff shampoo is showing some results.” Naturally, he is so distracted by her luscious black hair (can’t say I blame him), that he doesn’t pay attention to his driving and causes an accident (I would say that sending a baby sailing through the air counts as an accident). Then the commercial stops and rewinds and we hear, “Surprise, new Sunsilk Double Care: with Vitanol to take care of dandruff and wheat oil to keep hair soft.” Then the next scene is quite impressive, our raven haired heroine is able to evaluate the situation, get out of the car and catch the baby before he hits the pavement. The young man breathes a sigh of relief (no lawsuit or prison time for him) and is obviously so glad he’s got a hot athletic girlfriend who uses Sunsilk. The last lines of the narrator are, “New Sunsilk Double Care, didn’t expect that did you?”

So here we have it, a personal product that can literally stop traffic and give a woman superhero reflexes. No I didn’t expect that to be honest. This is a fairly obvious message, this product, Sunsilk, will make the user lovely and desirable, but let’s move on to something a little more nuanced and more subtle. My next example of Indonesian commercials is a thirty second spot for the country’s national airline called Garuda, the name refers to a mythical bird deity of Hindu mythology. I believe Garuda Air is no longer allowed to land at US airports due to their appalling safety record. My slogan for Garuda would be something like, “Fly Garuda and we’ll turn you into a praying person even if you’re an atheist,” but I digress. So let’s see the commercial and then go into greater depth.



One of the first things you will notice is that there are no words spoken, none even written for that matter. Second thing you might notice is the music, and then the strange stylized animation. Besides that, does it seem confusing or pointless? Let me give a little explanation on the truck load of symbolism that is going on in this half minute of time. First off the music mimics the style of classical Javanese orchestra known as Gamelan. This type of music is played for high culture events such as: weddings, circumcisions, and royal court performances of the Javanese Sultanates. So we have a music that is quintessential of high culture in Indonesia. Our second reference to this indigenous high culture is the animation style. It mimics a style of performance known as Wayang Kulit, or simply translated, “shadow puppets”. These flat leather puppets are used behind a cloth screen in countless Hindu and Islamic epics; again this is something that is very unique to Indonesian Javanese culture. Both of these art forms are highly revered, have been in existence for about a millennium, and would be some of the first things a foreigner would be exposed to when learning about Indonesian arts and culture.

The second thing I will point out is what actually is happening in the animation. We see a bird (the mythical Garuda) fly through a collage of images. I’ll just try to mention them in brief so I don’t take up another 8 paragraphs. First, standing next to a tree are two wayang people exchanging a flower, a lotus which I believe is a symbol for Thailand. Then the pointed spires seen are a symbol for a massive Bhuddist monument in Indonesia known as Borabudur, which is a huge tourist attraction. From there Garuda flies past the Great Wall, obviously a symbol for China; then we see a Sumo wrestler which is obviously symbolizing Japan. A three wheeled pedicab moves by, which I believe could be a symbol for Vietnam. This pedicab cycles by an image of a fish with a lion’s head, this being a very famous landmark of Singapore. Finally we see a multi tiered Hindu temple which would only be found on the Indonesian island of Bali. The two wayang humans from the beginning appear again and then the Garuda bird transforms into the Garuda Airline logo. So the collage starts off in Indonesia, weaves through various symbols of a number of Asian countries, and then finally comes back around to Indonesia again.

OK, wow, I tried to cover what was there without being too detailed, but seriously, I could write a research paper on the imagery and symbolism in this commercial. You really need to watch this one a few times to catch it all. We have very indigenous art forms that make Indonesian culture special associated with a company, an airline. Not only does this airline identify itself with Indonesia, it also makes “tie-ins” with all of east Asia. Let me try to give a broad interpretation for all of this. Garuda Air is not only the carrier that is part of Indonesia, but also Asia at large.

So let’s summarize. The basic formats of advertising that we see here in the USA, are also the same templates used in advertising in other countries of the world. In one example we have the hero myth played out very blatantly where a particular product brings about a happy ending to the narrative. In another example, subtle cultural references encourage a person to associate that culture with a particular brand.