Women in India spend twice as many hours as men, watching content online. An integral part of their viewing experience is frequent buffering due to slow internet speeds.

This idea aimed to ride on the content that women watch, and embed a purpose and message to the buffering symbol. Thereby, smartly turning a mundane buffering symbol into an effective medium. Since consumers had never seen a buffering symbol used as a medium of communication, it made the idea surprising, unmissable and informative. Something our viewers noticed and engaged with in huge numbers.

There’s been a sharp rise in the incidence of breast cancer in urban India, especially amongst women under the age of 50. This makes the idea of preventive self-care even more crucial. And all it needs is two minutes of her time. Even though, they are aware of the dangers of breast cancer, most women neglect this life-saving practice.

ALTBalaji, one of India’s leading VOD apps wanted to remind its women subscribers to perform the breast self-exam regularly.

Given the data speeds on mobile devices in India, there is evidently some downtime while watching video content. In fact, ALTBalaji’s subscribers stare at the buffering symbol for an average of 18 seconds per episode. Which means, their entire women subscriber base of 1.2 million stares at the buffering symbol for approximately 360,000 minutes a day.

Can we turn this downtime into a useful reminder for breast self-examination?

ALTBalaji replaced its regular buffering symbol with the simple, yet unique ‘Breast Buffer’ symbol. So, every time the content buffered, our new 'Breast Buffer' symbol popped up as a personal and discreet reminder. The message next to the symbol encouraged women to check themselves for breast cancer. The symbol was surprising, unmissable and informative. Something our viewers noticed and engaged with in huge numbers.

Women in India spend twice as many hours as men, watching content online. But given the data speeds on mobile devices in India, there is evidently some downtime while watching video content. In fact, ALTBalaji’s subscribers stare at the buffering symbol for an average of 18 seconds per episode. Which means their entire women subscriber base of 1.2 million stares at the buffering symbol for approximately 360,000 minutes a day.

Can we utilise this downtime to remind women to check themselves for breast cancer?

ALTBalaji has a lot of programming which is women-centric. So, they chose 24 shows which were the most popular and decided to replace the buffering symbol on these programmes. The buffering symbol works as a personal and discreet reminder that encouraged them to check themselves for breast cancer. It was accompanied by a message that guided them to the initiatives page, which included breast self-examination tutorials in English and Hindi.

Moreover, prominent Bollywood celebrities supported the initiative and created awareness about the new symbol on social media.

The new symbol was surprising, unmissable and women engaged with it in huge numbers - 12 million interactions in 3 weeks to be precise.

The Breast Buffer symbol was launched on the 16th of April and ALTBalaji plans to keep it embedded on its content for a period of 3 months.

12 Million interactions in three weeks

2.4 Million women reached

2.6 Million breast self-examination tutorial video views

Rs. 13 Million earned media