Fortuna Group: Global minded, Indonesian rooted, pandemic proof

Grenville I Francis chats with CEO Ratna Puspitasari about changing the fortunes of Fortuna and its clients.

Fortune Indonesia had been safeguarding the advertising, marketing and communication fortunes of businesses for neigh on 50 years. In 2019, a year before its golden jubilee, it changed its name to Fortuna Group with a focus on progression through upgraded capabilities and enhanced performances.

As one of the pioneers in the Indonesian advertising scene with a core strength of recognising and understanding the country’s diverse markets and insights, the name change also heralded the agency’s concentration of helping international brands penetrate the local market. Hence the new positioning of global minded, Indonesian rooted.

But then in 2020, COVID-19 hit the pockets of all and sundry and created for Fortuna (and every other ad agency in the world) the most challenging of all briefs: How to survive a worldwide pandemic, then pick up the pieces and thrive?

Chief Executive Officer Ratna Puspitasari, affectionately known as Sasa, says the agency began by helping its clients adjust their business plans to navigate through the testing times, as well as making its own budgets more fluid and flexible to deal with the unknown. As a result, the “pandemic has turned our clients to be more like close partners,” she says.

Fortuna created for client Semen Tiga Roda the Masternya Di Rumah Aja campaign to help builders affected by the COVID lockdown; a vertical film project with TikTok to embrace the trend of consuming video content on mobile devices during the pandemic; and the MasCare #WeAreInThisTogether movement that turned a negative insight into a positive action by using facemasks as the medium to spread the spirit of togetherness and protection at the height of the outbreak and save Indonesian lives.

Sasa also thanks the Indonesian government, under Pak Jokowi’s (President Joko Widodo) leadership, for its resilience that assisted businesses to continue operating. She adds the adaptability of the Indonesian people, where every crisis was seen as an opportunity, became part of the map to navigate through the pandemic.

That resilience and adaptability provided Fortuna with the means to do something not many agencies could afford to do – retain employees and safeguard wages. No staff cuts, no salary cuts. It went even further by rewarding its high achievers. Sasa says, “those who strive during hard times are priceless for the company” and as such, deserve promotion.

Fortuna also created a studio and function space where people came together for internal events and social gatherings – restrictions permitted of course. She says this further strengthened the bonds amongst staff members, which led to a better performing agency.

Another great initiative was to go outside the box, not just think outside it – to spruce up its talent requirements. “We also started partnerships with communities, media, technologists and public figures to expand our capabilities beyond internal talents,” she says.

That sprucing up of talents saw the arrival of Donny Arifin as Head of Growth for Integrated Division, Bhayu Sugarda as Head of Growth for PR and Andy Victor as Executive Creative Director as well.

On the subject of creative awards, Sasa, who was Chief Creative Officer before becoming CEO, sees “awards as efforts in practicing and improving our skill[s], not only for the sake of winning and to get acknowledged.”

But Fortuna has gained some recognition. An equal 8th place at the recent Campaign Brief Creative Rankings and Fortuna PR voted Best Branding Agency in Brand Communication Champions 2021, together with the mantra to do better – which began with helping clients win. “In circumstances like [the] pandemic, to present awards for our clients were much more crucial,” says Sasa. “So in 2020-2021 we focus[ed] on that.”

A focus which resulted in Semen Tiga Roda winning Iconomics 2020 for the Millennials’ Choice for Most Resilient Brand for the cement category, and Asimor winning Highest Appreciation Award in SWA Digital Marketing Champion 2021.

“That also has made [a positive] impact [on] our revenue as well as the relationships. Now that we’ve built [the] foundations… Fortuna will be even more aggressive… aiming to innovate and win more international awards,” she says.

“It’s been a dream to put Fortuna back on the map and we managed to do that,” Sasa goes on to say. Still a way to go to reach the top, but one by one, goals are coming to realisation she says.

CEO Ratna Puspitasari concludes whilst the pandemic has been a nightmare for many other agencies or industries, Fortuna was able to tackle such a challenging brief and get closer to achieving their dreams.