From France to Indonesia: What Bella Talla Learned About Business, Content, and the Asian Market
Surabaya, Start Friday Asia — Bella Talla, an international business student from France, spent two months interning at Start Friday Asia, a marketing and brand strategy agency in Surabaya, Indonesia. During her internship, she worked across market research, business development, digital marketing, and content creation, gaining a first-hand view of how marketing strategy works in the Indonesian and wider Asian market.
What Did Bella Do During Her Internship at Start Friday Asia?
Bella's placement was part of Start Friday Asia's marketing internship program in Indonesia, where she rotated across market research, business projects, business development, digital marketing, and content creation, rather than being locked into a single fixed role. Rather than focusing on only one type of task, she was able to see how different parts of a brand strategy connect with one another.
From classroom theory to real campaigns
As an international business student, Bella had already studied business concepts in France. In Indonesia, she was able to see how those concepts are translated into real campaigns, content, and business decisions.
How Indonesian and Asian brands build attention
Working around different brands also exposed her to marketing methods commonly used across the Indonesian and wider Asian market. She observed how brands build attention through social media, how campaigns are connected to cultural moments, and how content needs to move quickly to stay relevant to its audience.
Marketing here was not only about presenting a product. It could involve creating a campaign around a particular moment, developing promotional mechanics, working with communities, collaborating with creators, or finding a simple content angle that makes people want to interact with a brand. For Bella, this made digital marketing feel much more tangible, she was not only learning what businesses communicate, but also why certain approaches work for certain audiences.
Who Is Bella Talla?
Bella, an international business student from France, found Start Friday Asia as a place to apply what she had studied in a market very different from the one she was familiar with in Europe.
Her first impression was simple: the environment felt welcoming and open to ideas. For someone entering a new country and workplace at the same time, that openness made a difference. It allowed her to ask questions, contribute her own perspective, and gradually become more comfortable working with a team from a different cultural background.
When Did Bella Complete Her Internship in Indonesia?
Bella's internship ran for two months. That timeframe gave her enough exposure to move beyond first impressions and start seeing patterns, in how the team worked, how campaigns were built, and how the Indonesian market responded to different kinds of content.
Her timing lines up with a broader shift: Southeast Asia, home to roughly 700 million people and a fast-growing middle class, is increasingly seen as a rising hub for international education and student mobility, according to a 2025 analysis by Studyportals. More students from outside the region are choosing to study and intern in Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, than in previous years.
Where Did Bella Experience the Indonesian and Asian Market?
Working in Indonesia also introduced Bella to a consumer environment with its own pace, habits, and cultural references. A marketing idea that makes sense in one country does not automatically work in another. Language, trends, purchasing habits, social platforms, cultural moments, and even the way people respond to promotions can change how a brand should communicate.
Through market research and her involvement in different projects, Bella began learning how businesses need to understand their local audience before deciding how to market something. She also saw how closely content, community, and commerce can work together. In Indonesia and many Asian markets, social media can be more than a place for brand awareness, it can become part of how consumers discover products, follow trends, participate in campaigns, interact with communities, and eventually make purchasing decisions.
Why Did This Internship Matter for Her International Business Studies?
Bella was also actively involved in creating content during her time at Start Friday Asia. This gave her another perspective on digital marketing: being behind the content instead of only analyzing it.
Creating content requires understanding more than visual trends. There is an audience to consider, a message to communicate, and a reason behind why the content is being made in the first place. It also means understanding how a brand should speak. Some brands need communication that feels polished and aspirational. Others depend more on humor, community, education, lifestyle, or fast-moving trends.
Working with content allowed Bella to see how different brands can use completely different approaches while still working toward the same goal: staying relevant to the people they want to reach. For someone studying digital and international business, this was a practical way to understand how strategy turns into something consumers actually see.
How Did Bella Adapt to a New Working Environment in Indonesia?
Working abroad also came with challenges. Bella described adapting to a completely new working environment as one of the biggest ones. It required her to become more flexible and confident, especially when communicating and collaborating with people who may approach work differently from what she was used to.
Like most students who join a digital marketing internship in Surabaya for the first time, Bella's biggest adjustment wasn't the work itself but the working culture. Over the two months, she felt that her teamwork and communication skills became stronger.
The experience also helped her understand something that is difficult to learn only from textbooks: international business is as much about adapting to people and environments as it is about understanding markets. Working across cultures requires listening, observing, asking questions, and being willing to adjust your own assumptions. Those skills can become especially valuable when working in marketing, where understanding people is often just as important as understanding numbers.
By the end of her time in Indonesia, Bella had gained more than experience in a different office. She had seen how digital business operates in another part of the world, explored the characteristics of the Indonesian and Asian market, worked on real business and marketing tasks, and experienced content creation from inside a creative team.
When asked to describe the experience, Bella chose three words: enriching, inspiring, and rewarding.
FAQ: International Internship at Start Friday Asia
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Internships typically run around two months, covering market research, digital marketing, business development, and content creation.
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The program is open to international and local university students, including business, marketing, and communications majors looking for hands-on agency experience in Indonesia.
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Interns rotate across real client projects, market research, brand strategy, digital marketing, and content creation, rather than being limited to one task.
Intern With Start Friday Asia
Bella's story is one example of what Start Friday Asia's international internship program in Indonesia looks like in practice. Students interested in a similar experience can find current openings and requirements on the internship page.
