Even though product has taken centre stage during Covid-19, Traveloka’s Christian Suwarna believes that marketing is also having its breakout moment in terms of how the Indonesian travel unicorn is rethinking its marketing strategy.

With limited funds to spend, the chief marketing officer and CEO, Experience Business Unit of Traveloka said, “It’s been a period of reflection.”

He said, “There is compression of business and we need to be very financially disciplined. Now we look at the other side of the coin – our own customers that we have acquired so far, more than 60m app downloads – and we look at ways we can engage with them with our own capabilities.

“We are becoming more careful and thoughtful in our marketing efforts and spend and funnelling it in areas that would bring the most impact, building our own capabilities and balancing it with third party advertising platforms.

“I don’t think we can live completely without them but it’s revisiting our marketing – we don’t have money now, this is what we have, what can we do now? It’s when you’re most creative.”

He calls it a shift from “hunting” to “harvesting”.

“When you’re in growth mode, you hunt for customers and once they are in your ecosystem, they become your crops and you farm them. Then you harvest them.

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