How Visinema is building emotional IPs for longevity and co-creation

In 2025, Jumbo reshaped how Indonesian animation is perceived globally, moving it from a niche regional category into a commercially proven creative export. Produced by Visinema Studios and directed by Ryan Adriandhy, the animated feature delivered strong box office performance alongside international reach across roughly 40 countries – signalling that locally rooted storytelling can travel when developed as a long-term cultural asset, rather than a one-off release.

Yet its impact extends well beyond box office performance.

The film has become a reference point for a broader shift in how intellectual property is constructed and monetised, where storytelling is no longer confined to the screen. For Visinema Studios, this means moving away from traditional content cycles and toward what it defines as emotional ecosystems: living IPs designed to grow with audiences over time, rather than peak and fade with release windows.

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This approach goes beyond making films, focusing instead on building worlds that multiple stakeholders – including brands – can meaningfully enter and co-create within.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spoke with Herry Budiazhari Salim (pictured), group president and CEO of Visinema Studios, to discuss how the studio, through its properties, is positioning itself around a different kind of scale – one measured by how deeply a story embeds itself into everyday life, and how long it continues to resonate.

“We are not building a factory. We are building a studio with a consistent philosophy, and that distinction matters to us,” he said.

When IP leaves the screen – and enters real life

For Visinema, the idea of an “evergreen IP” starts long before marketing or monetisation enters the equation. It begins at the earliest stages of storytelling.

“An evergreen IP is not just a film that performs well at the box office. It is a story world that is rich and honest enough to stay relevant across time and generations,” Salim said.

That framing signals a shift in how IP is being conceptualised in Indonesia. Rather than building content for campaigns or cycles, Visinema is anchoring its stories in emotional constants – “warmth, friendship, courage, the desire to belong” – values that already exist within Indonesian family life.

“From day one of developing Jumbo and Na Willa, the question we kept asking was not just ‘will this film succeed?’ but ‘will this story world still matter ten or twenty years from now?’”

That long-term thinking is also extending into physical environments.

Activations for Jumbo at Trans Studio Cibubur and Taman Safari Indonesia Prigen mark a deliberate move into experiential storytelling – but this was not driven purely by commercial calculation, Salim said. Instead, expansion is treated as a continuation of narrative.

Our principle is straightforward, real-world expansion should feel like a natural continuation of the story, not an attempt to capitalise on the film’s popularity.

Crucially, Visinema is using behavioural signals – not just performance metrics – to determine readiness. Organic audience actions, from children asking for costumes to families recommending the film unprompted, are treated as leading indicators of IP elasticity.

The discipline of not over-commercialising

As studios globally push to maximise IP value across formats, Visinema is taking a more restrained approach – one that prioritises curation over scale.

“The line becomes clear when the motivation behind a decision is more about financial opportunity than relevance to the story,” Salim noted.

Salim warns that overextension rarely comes from a single misstep, but from “a series of small choices” that gradually dilute the emotional core – a risk that becomes more pronounced as more partners and platforms enter the ecosystem.

Visinema’s commercial model rejects the traditional linear pipeline from cinema to streaming to merchandise.

“We think of it less as a straight line from cinema to streaming, and more as a series of expanding circles,” Salim emphasised.

Each layer – theatrical release, international distribution, OTT, licensing, experiential activations – is designed to deepen engagement rather than extract value.

Community before campaigns

At the centre of this ecosystem is a segment often underserved in Indonesia: the multi-generational family audience.

“The family audience is central to what we do, and that is not accidental. Indonesia genuinely lacks quality entertainment that the whole family, children, parents, grandparents, can sit down and enjoy together,” Salim said.

Rather than flattening content for broad appeal, Visinema is layering it – designing different emotional entry points for each generation.

The outcome, Salim noted, is when “a child laughs and a parent tears up at the same moment” – a signal of cross-generational resonance that extends beyond typical audience segmentation.

In contrast to performance marketing-driven releases, Visinema is investing early in community formation.

The Na Willa “Nonton Duluan” programme – rolled out across 22 cities – is positioned less as a promotional tactic and more as an audience incubation strategy. “It reflects how we think an IP should come into the world, not just released, but genuinely received by a community,” he said.

These early viewers become organic amplifiers – not through paid influence, but through emotional connection.

Word-of-mouth from someone who was actually affected by a film is far more powerful than any paid campaign.

Brand collaborations as narrative contributors

For brand partnerships, Visinema is setting a high bar – one that moves beyond sponsorship and into co-creation.

“The core principle is that a brand should come in as a contributor to the audience experience, not as an advertiser riding the IP’s popularity,” Salim explained.

This approach requires early integration and alignment on values, aesthetics, and narrative intent.

“When that alignment exists, a collaboration can actually enrich the audience experience. When it does not, no amount of money justifies the risk to the IP’s integrity.” 

This is particularly important as, despite growing international traction, structural challenges remain – particularly around distribution bias and talent development. “The global distribution industry still carries a bias against Southeast Asian content,” he added. Yet Visinema Studios’s experience with Jumbo suggests that cultural specificity may be an advantage rather than a barrier.

“We did not try to make Jumbo feel more global by softening its Indonesian identity… the response… was warmer than we expected.”

For Salim, the larger shift required is not just infrastructural, but psychological.

“As long as there is still an assumption that Indonesian stories need to be ‘internationalised’ before they can be accepted abroad, we will keep producing work that loses its identity before it gets the chance to prove its strength.”

In a fragmented content landscape, Visinema’s strategy is not to compete for attention – but to offer something fundamentally different.

“Short-form content is good at delivering quick entertainment… but it cannot replace sitting in a cinema for two hours with your family… and walking out feeling something you cannot quite put into words.”

Rather than chasing platforms or formats, the studio is betting on emotional depth as its moat – and community as its growth engine. In an era defined by endless content, that kind of sustained emotional connection is increasingly becoming the scarcest form of scale.

Be part of PR Asia Indonesia 2026 on 15 July 2026 – the first time this regional communications flagship lands in Jakarta – bringing together communications leaders ready to redefine influence, reputation, and impact!

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