Indonesia - my love: An expatriate's ode to Indonesia

"Indonesia - my love" provides snippets about the Indonesian consumers and the market from an expatriate's viewpoint. This includes insightful observations peppered with anecdotes, about different facets of Indonesians, and provides learnings' that will greatly help both expatriates as well as marketers understand the Indonesian consumer a better. It discusses my observations, viewpoints and some of my experiences in Indonesia. I write about what Indonesians value most, about food, retail, society trends, advertising and also opportunities for marketers and advertisers to capitalise on

This will take a leap from the popular "The Emergence of I in Indonesia" that I co-authored with Monica Cravenetya about socio-cultural changes witnessed in Indonesia resulting in it moving slowly from a collectivist, conformist society to an individualist, assertive society (this was awarded best paper at the ESOMAR Asia-Pacific conference 2015 at Singapore)

Indonesia has gained the world's attention being the fourth largest democracy and the biggest South-East Asian market. A lot more regional and international companies are focusing on the market,and establishing a presence and a local office (unlike earlier where a Singapore or HK office or the international HQ handled Indonesia).

There are a lot more expatriates - managers from across their globe, and their families and social support circles (education, lifestyle, community related support/ traders etc.) who are in Indonesia and would like to know more in an easy-to-read non-academic manner.

A lot of international companies who have tried to launch their global leading brands and products have struggled in Indonesia meeting limited or no success. This book helps understand some of the reasons why, as well as talks of some of the trends changing which might help the business manager while highlighting opportunities and some best practices that other successful brands and advertisements have used and achieved in Indonesia.

This book will best help business managers, marketers, advertisers and expatriates connect to Indonesians and understand what makes them tick, and what drives them. And being non-academic,and written in an easy-to-read style makes it not just a good read but entertaining as well. Marketeers and managers would benefit by mining insights from this and utilize this in their HR as well as marketing campaigns. If you are new to Indonesia this would be a great primer, and if you are experienced this would serve as a refresher, provoking new angles of looking at the market and the consumers.

A key aspect of this book is its easy-to-read style - somewhere between a coffee table book, a magazine as well as a compendium of learning's. While there are sections, it will not be one continuous long essay and instead will contain snippets on the topic (max 3 pages each) compiled in an interesting sequence. The reader can start anywhere, read a piece within a couple of minutes, as well as move to another different piece elsewhere in the book. The entire book should be readable within a flight or overnight at most.

Overall the author fervently hopes that the one thing he would like to leave in the minds of the readers is a love for this wonderful country and its lovely people.