OCBC: Nyala Festival
Client
Service
Industry
Turning financial literacy into festival culture young Indonesians actually wanted to show up for.
Agency
Scope of Work
- Brand Activation
- Campaign Strategy
- Event Marketing
A festival culture with a hidden mission, sneaking financial education into the heart of entertainment.
Challenge
In Indonesia, money is taboo, and financial education feels formal and easy to ignore.
The gap is structural, not just disinterest. National literacy sits at 65.43%, but for 15 to 17 year-olds it drops to 51.70%. OCBC’s Financial Fitness Index found 80% of Indonesians spend to match their peers, and only 1 in 4 hold an emergency fund. Meanwhile concert culture climbed, with 68% of youth at concerts yearly, paying IDR 1 to 5 million for sold-out tickets. The question was never how to lecture better. It was how to make finance worth lining up for.
Approach
FUN and FINANCIALLY FIT became one theme, where lifestyle and financial health live in the same place.
OCBC's audience was young Indonesians who chase lifestyle experiences but rarely engage with financial literacy. Most believe enjoying life costs them financial stability, so one always gets sacrificed. The strategy was to break that trade-off by meeting them inside the culture they already love, turning finance into a full festival experience instead of another finance class. Financial education would not interrupt the fun, it would live inside it.
Execution
We connected with the audience in an unexpected place, on dating apps.
People increasingly look for companions to attend festivals together, so we took the campaign to where that happens, on dating platforms like Bumble and communities like Joindong. Together with OCBC, we built an official Bumble profile inviting festival-goers to Nyala Fest 2024, set to make friends and find community, so it reached all genders across youth and mature audiences, then widened the location range to reach further.
A giant mascot took over Jakarta while the digital invitation did its quiet work.
To capture public attention, we ran a stunt that placed the Nyala mascot in two high-traffic Jakarta locations, extending the campaign's physical touchpoints. To engage people more personally, we fine-tuned Sintya's Bumble persona, tightening the tonality, profile, and interaction guidelines so every exchange felt authentic. In just 12 hours, the account received over 259 right swipes, proving its appeal even in an intimate digital space.
One-on-one conversations drove ticket sales.
Through Sintya's Bumble account, we held conversations with over 100 people a day, building rapport and persuading them to buy tickets, even setting up meet-ups with Sintya at the venue. The interactions stayed organic, turning direct engagement into real ticket sales. We then pushed the narrative into wider media and community channels, building buzz and urgency. Presale 1 sold out, proving conversation-led commerce can outperform conventional promos.
Across 3 days, the festival proved a financial event could be genuinely fun.
Together with OCBC, we brought the festival to life, from the pop-up market to a financial class to the concert. Over three days, Nyala brought thousands of young Indonesians together to meet their idols, sing, play games, eat local food, shop from Semasa Market creators, and capture memories. But the heart of it stayed the financial classes, made engaging and anything but boring, showing money can be as exciting as the lifestyle youth already love.
Result
The audience stopped seeing a finance event and started seeing a space they belonged in.
In the comments across Sintya’s, the community’s, and OCBC’s accounts, visitors didn’t talk about a formal, tedious obligation. They talked about a place where they could be open about their money realities and still have fun together. The perception shifted. Finance became familiar, relatable, and worth celebrating.
Impacts
63%
Increase in visitors versus the previous event
12K++
Tickets sold to 8,565 unique visitors
33%+
Retention rate, already close to restaurant benchmarks of 30–40%