OLX Claims that Re-Branding Does not Affect Its Brand Awareness

Ever since getting officially re-branded last May, OLX Indonesia (previously Tokobagus) self-claimed that it has yet encountered any significant challenges in regard to its brand awareness. At a glance, this claim, which gets backed up by a research by MetrixLab, seems to be successful in countering negative comments suggesting that the re-branding was a mistake.

“There were indeed some comments stating that the re-branding of Tokobagus into OLX would give negative impacts. To respond such view, we have gradually conducted a series of researches on our brand awareness through third parties, and the result is always encouraging. We find out that OLX still get the Indonesian people’s top of mind awareness,” Alif Priyono, OLX’s Chief Operating Officer, claimed during a gathering session in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta.

Alif suggested that the MetrixLab’s research result speaks for itself. According to the research, Tokobagus reached 56% top of brand awareness, while OLX only got no more than 1%. In September, however, after the re-branding was completed, OLX surprisingly got 48% awareness, while Tokobagus ‘only’ had 13%.

“That 13% will definitely keep decreasing along with the increasing popularity of OLX, particularly because users will get automatically re-directed to OLX.co.id’s main page everytime they try accessing Tokobagus.com. That is why we still have the people’s top of mind awareness,” Priyono added.

He further stated that there are a number of factors contributing to this achievement. He claimed that it is OLX’s prime communication to the users, including investing heavily on advertisements on TV, that becomes the most decisive factor. Its attempts to make users easier to access the website becomes another fundamental factor. In this regard, OLX makes use of Google Search effectively and permanently re-directs users who visit Tokobagus to its main page.

Regarding its massive investment at national commercial TV stations, Priyono said that his side will keep using that kind of method. Ufortunately, he was unwilling to reveal OLX’s marketing plan for next year. FYI, it surely takes a big amount of money to invest on advertisements at TV stations.

“We will keep advertising on TV, and how we do this in the future will depend on the market’s reaction. The point is, we will learn the situation. We have yet had any plan regarding the portion on advertisements that we’ll put on TV next year,” Priyono told DailySocial.

Advertisements on commercial TV stations indeed hold a fundamental role in shaping people’s mindset. In this regard, I assume that OLX will keep exposing itself through commercial campaigns on TV. As a matter of fact, there are more and more players of Indonesian digital industry trusting television as their promotion media.

Well, OLX may claim that the re-branding has no negative impact to its brand awareness. Question is, has OLX taken every possible source into account before generating such claim?