Out of the 112 million people living in rural Indonesia, less than 10% accesses YouTube content daily. This is due to the high cost of data in Indonesia and specifically YouTube being perceived as a “data-eater”.

YouTube Go is a lite video streaming application that was introduced under the YouTube flagship brand. It helps users in rural areas overcome the hesitation of watching online videos and establish a new offering while retaining equity and love for YouTube through its data control feature. Hence, retaining YouTube’s equity while shedding its negative perception.

Our campaign was designed to address the negative perception of users in rural areas in order for them to accept and use YouTube Go.

The objective was therefore to:

1. Get users in rural markets to accept and INSTALL the YouTube franchise.

2. Help them overcome their fear in order to develop a DAILY HABIT of watching YouTube videos.

YOUTUBE GO RURAL MOVEMENT

Creating a movement and sense of social acceptance towards YouTube Go by tapping into grassroot communities.

People in rural areas suffer the most from lack of infrastructure to support online needs, due to the fact that they are still coping with a basic 2G/3G connection (KOMINFO, 2017).

Furthermore, despite Indonesia having the most affordable internet in the world (International Telecommunication Union, 2014), the price of data for Rural Indonesians is still barely within their reach. This is due to the income inequality between urban and rural populations. While they aspire to watch more videos, their data limitations hinders them from doing so.

So in order to build stronger acceptance towards YouTube Go and remove their fear towards video streaming, we capitalised on the effect of Social Proof. The influence of Social Proof in eliminating adoption barriers are amplified in rural communities. In areas where people live in closer proximity and communal values are strongly upheld, these effects are especially powerful.

Social Proof helps consumers feel confident about their choices, make better decisions, and take action.

To replicate the effect of Social Proof, we created a movement with grassroots communities. Together with a local NGO, we provided housewives with workshops that empowered them with business and entrepreneurial skills. YouTube Go became a vital component in this workshop in providing access to educational videos.

The participants shared their experience on their social media, and some of their success stories were shared online. The intention was to get real users to talk about the new technology using their own language instead of using our own tech-jargon.

Additional short videos were delivered through social media, encouraging users to download YouTube Go. The videos depicts how word circulated across a community about YouTube Go, from one person to another, increasing the sense of excitement and acceptance to the product.

Before the launch of YouTube Go, Google faced a problem in growing the user base of YouTube beyond urban centres. Due to our audiences economic conditions and geographic limitations, watching videos on YouTube is seen as impractical and expensive. However, with YouTube Go, Google is trying to reach this audience with their low-end smartphones, 2G/3G connectivity and limited WiFi access.

This campaign generated an additional 15 million new users which translates to 24% incremental activations, or more than 20% over our stretched target.

This is the most successful YouTube Go launch in the world with total more than 80 million people using YouTube Go in the country from total 200 million people globally. YouTube Go also contributed over 12% of YouTube Indonesia daily active users with the lowest cost per acquisition among all app install campaign globally across Google.