Helmad offers an innovative way for brands to advertise products on helmets, while rewarding two-wheeler riders for every kilometre they cover

Helmad Founder Michael Hendriks

Michael Hendriks was touring to Jakarta in 2015 when he decided to lock himself one night in the brainstorm room of a co-working space, with nothing more than a whiteboard and some music. He was working on a concept that could possibly change the lives of millions of people of Indonesia, a city he was deeply in love with.

He invited a friend to share his feedback on the product, or rather the prototype. After hours of discussions and iteration, he ended up wiping clean the whiteboard and drawing a helmet and an advertisement next to each other.

And an innovative product, Helmad, took shape.

“Hailing from Holland, I arrived in Jakarta early 2015 after many visits as a tourist. I saw the possibilities offered by this country, a land of nearly 300 million people and a fast-growing economy,” Hendriks tells me. “On a personal level, Jakarta has always felt like home to me; the culture, the busy city, the people, the vibes, and even the traffic.”

After years of painstaking research, Hendriks started Helmad in 2018. His product offers an innovative way for brands to advertise products on helmets, while rewarding two-wheeler riders for every kilometre they cover.

In other words, Helmad turns a safety tool people are obliged to wear in traffic into a moving billboard.

“I couldn’t imagine that almost four years after I arrived here, I would turn the traffic jams into a new marketing machine, but it feels only right to contribute to a better, safer and more booming environment,” he shares.

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According to him, Helmad is partly a new marketing channel and partly a social impact generator. “Along with providing a platform for brands to spread their message around town, Helmad allows students to earn some cash and receive other incentives along with it.”

“As for the quirky brand name, we simply smashed the words ‘helmet’ and ‘ads’ together. It’s so simple that it’s effective, and is weird enough. A weird name works; some people like it, some people don’t. It makes people start talking about it,” he laughs.

How does it work?

Drivers can sign up and get assigned to a certain client ad campaign, after which they will receive a helmet with a built-in GPS tracker (to persuade students to sign up as drivers, Helmad offers free helmets with 12-month basic insurance, in addition to rewards).

The helmets are designed in partnership with the clients in order to ensure the marketing message remains on the headgear throughout the campaign.

Throughout the campaign, Helmad provides live updates on its progress and offers continuous support to its client, who may want to change their game plans along the way. At the end of each campaign, the helmet will be renewed or exchanged and the drivers will get brand new ones.

The drivers (students) will keep track of their covered distance as well as their earnings through Helmad’s app. Moving forward, Helmad will actively turn the app into a financial platform, where drivers will be guided on how to save and manage money.

“Whether the driver gets assigned to a campaign of one month or three months, he or she receives the insurance for 12 months upfront, allowing everybody to get acquainted with insurance coverage. For the insurance, we are working together with a partner, who offers a very affordable life insurance with lots of features and benefits, and most of all, an easy-to-use app, allowing users to upgrade or downgrade certain policies,” he reveals.

With the current structure, Helmad focuses on bigger brands, for their marketing budget fits with its business model. “We have been pitching Helmad to some of the key players active in Indonesia, and especially in Jakarta. We can offer them tailor-made campaigns varying in length, number of drivers and of course budget. More than half of the prospected clients are interested to start a campaign in 2019.”

However, Helmad doesn’t restrict itself to big brands. “The beauty of this system, however, is that we can easily scale it down, and it will be interesting and affordable for smaller businesses also,” Hendriks adds. “Think about an artist who releases a new album, or movies that will be in the cinemas soon, or even events. We also see huge opportunities in the country’s politics. The project I am most proud of has to be the upcoming presidential elections in Indonesia. I am expecting to make a huge social impact with that, although I cannot disclose too much information about that at the moment.”

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As per market research portal Statista findings, the total advertising spending in Indonesia came to US$2.36 billion in 2015 and is projected to grow to US$3.23 billion in 2019. This includes online advertising streams such as desktop/laptop, mobile and other internet-connected devices as well as offline advertising mediums such as directories, magazines, newspapers, out-of-home, radio and TV).

The projected market share for Out Of Home (OOH) advertising is around 29 to 30 per cent of the total ad spending market, which translates to US$93.3 million. “The growth of OOH advertising is showing the same amount of annual growth, and we at Helmad believe that we can trigger certain markets to opt for OOH even more and less for online,” he shares.

While Indonesia has always been Hendriks’s target market, he is not averse to exploring neighbouring markets. “We have already sat down with a party from Vietnam to discover the opportunities there, since it has a booming economy. Soon after, more countries like the Philippines can and should follow. It will be another dream come true, but for now, we need to deliver in Indonesia first.”

In the starting stage, Helmad faced many challenges. One mistake he made, Hendriks says, was coming up with client pricing and drivers’ wage calculations before comparing them with the country’s minimum wages.

Long before starting Helmad, Hendriks ran a business in Holland, and most recently in Indonesia.

“However, there was no social drive and it was solely focused on profit. It took me over 15 years to finally find a way to and make people happy and make a living out of it,” he signs off.

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