Indonesia’s rapid growth is due to the swift digitalisation of the market, according to Anita Mookerjee, CEO of MediaCom Indonesia.

Speaking at the Festival of Media Asia Pacific in Singapore, Mookerjee, along with Facebook Indonesia’s country head Anand Tilak, discussed the best strategy to reach consumers in the Indonesian market.

“55% of the population is urban. We also have the youngest population in the world – 50% are under 30 years old,” said Mookerjee.

“They are digital. Internet is the life blood of the nation with 80+ million internet users,” she added.

There is a huge proliferation of data as a result of this, helping it to become the fastest e-commerce market in the world.

According to Mookerjee, the average Indonesian spends an impressive nine hours a day on electronic media, meaning that having a company website or microsite is just not enough anymore.

“Every advertiser today needs a mobile friendly site,” she said.

Lots of brands still struggled to get into the hearts of the Indonesian consumer, said Mookerjee. To win in the market, she listed the “four C’s” of successful communication: the ‘consumer communication ecosystem’, Content, Consistency, and Contextual relevance.

Following on from Mookerjee’s discussion about the digitalisation of the market, Facebook’s Anand focused on the mobile specifics for the country.

“Mobile has changed Indonesia,” he said.

“People have skipped past desktop and laptop and gone straight to mobile,” he added.

For Indonesians, mobile has become the first thing they look at when they wake up, and the last thing they see before they go to sleep.

According to data, Indonesian people now spend more time on mobile devices than they do watching TV, but this doesn’t necessarily mean smartphones.

“Smartphones are growing fast, but feature phones continue to remain the main way that people come online,” he said, adding that 70% of mobile devices globally are feature phones.

“If your campaigns are targeted on the right device and to the right people, you will succeed.

“This is a young country, and optimistic. The journey has only just started,” he added.