Megawati poses with her mother, left, and her brother with a gift pack from Jung Kwan Jang at Indonesia Arena, Saturday, where she and her Jung Kwan Jang Red Sparks teammates played a friendly match against the Indonesian national team. Courtesy of Korea Ginseng Corp.

Korea Ginseng Corp. (KGC) is betting on Megawati Hangestri Pertiwi, an Indonesian volleyball player playing for the company's professional volleyball club Jung Kwan Jang Red Sparks, to expand its red ginseng market in the Southeast Asian country, which possesses a population of over 275 million people, according to Korea's leading ginseng health supplement manufacturer, Monday.

KGC's Indonesian marketing leveraged the 24-year-old volleyballer as she and her Red Sparks teammates visited Jakarta to play a friendly against the Indonesian national team.

At the Indonesia Arena, where the game was held on Saturday, the company went all out to promote its products to local volleyball fans, who filled the stadium's 16,000 seats.

Long queues formed in front of the company's booth inside the stadium, where it gave away Jung Kwan Jang's red ginseng extract bottles and samples of other health supplement products.

The company used its Indonesian visit to go all-out on promoting its local Jung Kwan Jang store at the luxurious Lotte Shopping Avenue mall in Jakarta.

For five days starting last Wednesday, it's presented visitors to its store with the brand's sample kits and offered its entire product lineup at discounted prices. Customers who purchased a certain amount of products at the store were given Megawati fan merchandise as well, including a doll and her jersey.

Megawati Hangestri Pertiwi spike the ball against Hyundai E&C Hillstate during a V-League match at Daejeon Chungmu Gymnasium in Daejeon, Oct. 29, 2023. Courtesy of Korea Volleyball Federation

"Megawati has been a tremendous strength for our Jung Kang Jang promotion in Indonesia," a KGC official said. "Just as Megawati is stirring the V-League courts right now, Jung Kwan Jang will hopefully promote Korean red ginsengs to global health supplement markets."

Joining the Korean Volleyball Federation's V-League last October, Megawati, a 185-centimeter tall opposite spiker, has become an important player of the team with her aggressive serves, once scoring 11 consecutive points against Hyundai E&C Hillstate, as well as her successful attack rate.

With her, Red Sparks advanced to the 2023–24 season's championship league for the top four clubs for the first time in seven years.

Megawati also contributed to the club's presence online. Red Sparks' Instagram account went from 20,000 last July to 280,000 this month.

The club's YouTube channel has seen the number of its subscribers surpass 230,000 this year and earned the club a Silver Play Button plaque, an achievement never attained by a V-League club before. Among the club's social media followers, 86 percent are Indonesians.

KGC anticipates her fandom in Indonesia will help Jung Kwan Jang's marketability there.

While Chinese and Taiwanese people living in Indonesia have accounted for the highest proportion of Jung Kwan Jang consumers, the company aims to broaden its Indonesian consumer base by promptly responding to the country's food regulations, like requiring all imported food items to be halal.

Indonesia has the largest Islamic population in the world.