Thailand’s True Group is making a play for Southeast Asia’s on-demand audiences, adding even more streaming activity to the regional frenzy and hanging another heavy load of hopes, dreams and ambition on, among others, Indonesia’s population of 274 million.

In the last few weeks, True Digital has quietly flipped the switch on TrueID advertising-supported on-demand platforms in Indonesia and the Philippines, following about nine months of prep in Jakarta and Manila.

In both markets, the platform is being offered as a standalone advertising-supported direct-to-consumer service, with telco (or other) distribution partnerships under discussion.     

Indonesia country  head, Armando Siahaan, says TrueID Indonesia’s competitive advantage is both its bottom-up approach in terms of content mix as well as services within the platform. 

“We have the ability to define our platform prioritising the specific characteristics of Indonesian audience,” he told ContentAsia.

“TrueID Indonesia offers long form content like movies and series from Indonesia and other Asian countries, which may be similar to the other OTT platforms. But we will also include classic local movie titles or reruns of favourite local TV shows, which may not be considered by the regional and global players,” he added.

Indonesian films include titles such as the comedy Cek Toko Sebelah (2016), romantic comedy Yowis Ben (2018); and Thai series Love You So (2019). Expansion includes lifestyle and anime, plus a wider geographic spread. Indonesian originals are also part of the plan. 

In the Philippines, the platform’s top dramas are Illustrado (2014) and Tadhana (2017), both from free-TV broadcaster GMA Network.

Local content creators and digital studios are being invited in to power a short-form layer along with live TV and articles – “two forms of content still vastly consumed by Indonesians,” Siahaan says – that other regional players don’t offer. 

In the Philippines, the focus is on non-scripted snackable content as well as a curated list of articles, which other OTT players don’t offer, says Philippines’ country head, Dindo Marzan. 

TrueID is committed to AVOD, including native advertising/branded content in both the Philippines and Indonesia. Any subscription tier (if there ever is one) would be layered on top of the free services, Marzan says. 

“A huge segment of Indonesian audience comes from a tradition of watching free-to-air TV, so they never had to pay for content and are used to the idea of watching ads. This segment is naturally shifting to digital. They will seek premium content on digital platforms, but with no willingness to pay,” Siahaan adds.

In addition, “with such a shift, digital advertising spend is also growing rapidly in this market. Brands will more and more look for premium inventory. That is where we come to try and connect those two needs.” 

Siahaan says his biggest challenge is Indonesia’s diversity and, therefore, the content mix across the archipelago. “Finding the right content formula is key,” he says.  

“This is exactly why TrueID Indonesia does not want to restrict itself to limited content formats, genres and even services, and instead offers a breadth of content verticals that we believe will resonate with Indonesian audiences”. 

In the Philippines, Marzan says his biggest challenge is “building a new brand in a country where True is not widely known and Facebook, YouTube, and Netflix are household names”.

Siahaan describes TrueID Indonesia’s current slate – Asian content, with the focus on Indonesia, Korean and Thai drama/horror/comedy – as in its “early stage”.

TrueID enters a space still raw from the high-profile crashes of iflix (powered by smart talking and breathtaking fund-raising strategies) and Hooq (powered by Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Brothers). Opinions range all over the place on blame, the simplest of which is a difficult operating environment. 

That operating environment remains. What True for sure doesn’t have is the same approach to B*S* announcements and claims to be doing and owning things it isn’t and doesn’t. And that may, in the end, be a good thing.