We now know the who the creative brains are behind what is so far the most hilarious campaign ad (for Indonesian millennials, at least) of the 2019 Indonesian presidential campaign.
Irfan Wahid, deputy director of political communications for the campaign team of President Joko Widodo and running mate Ma’ruf Amin, said his team created the hugely viral ad, which references the iconic Indonesian biscuits Khong Guan and the long-running mystery of the absent father on the tin can.
According to Irfan, the video was just the start and there’ll be more highly ironic pop culture-referencing viral campaigns from them in the future.
“Pak Jokowi was very happy [about he Khong Guan video], according to him this is a campaign style that’s creative and smart, just like he instructed,” Irfan told Tempo yesterday.
Irfan added that the video was a huge success because it went viral even before his team made a social media push for it.
“I posted it at lunch time at around 1pm, and by 4pm it was already trending. We didn’t even use our social media power,” he said.
The mystery of the missing father on Khong Guan biscuit cans has been the sources of endless debate and countless memes (Vice Indonesia did a great overview of all the speculation surrounding the biscuit tin and even got an answer directly from the image’s artist himself).
Terkuak!!!
Kenapa selama ini tak terlihat sosok ayah di keluarga Khong GuanSimak Pengakuan Sang Ibu Kpd Anak2nya 👇 #JokowiLagi pic.twitter.com/ICNbmVgUE2
— Murtadha (@MurtadhaOne) September 24, 2018
Jokowi’s campaign video, which parodies both the Khong Guan memes and the overly dramatic style of Indonesian sinetron (soap operas), shows the mother and her two children sitting at the same iconic table but with expressions far more troubled than those of the smiling family on the biscuit tin.
The mother asks the children why they look so sad and asks what is weighing on their minds.
“Actually we are embarrassed, Mom. We are ashamed because of netizens,” the boy in red says.
“Netizens always question why our fathers is never seen but we are always eating well,” says the girl in yellow.
After hearing their pain, the mom decided to reveal where their father is, saying she was reluctant to do so before because she was afraid she would be accused of campaigning (possibly a reference to the controversy over an ad recently shown before movies at some Indonesian movie theaters touting the government’s infrastructure accomplishments that was also accused of political campaigning).
The mother says that their father is employed again because the government has managed to reduce the unemployment rate to 5.13%. She also says the government has reduced the poverty rate to the single digits, the lowest at any time in history of the republic, which is why they can eat well.
Moved by this news, the kids yell out “Mom!” and go in for a group hug. They tell her not to be afraid of being accused of campaigning because what she was saying was the truth and answered the suspicions of netizens.
The video ends with a poster for President Joko Widodo and Ma’ruf Amin along with the hashtags #IndonesiaMaju (#IndonesiaGoForward) and #JokowiLagi (#JokowiAgain).
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