Spoiler alert: The rules of video engagement in Southeast Asia (SEA) are no longer set by the industry’s players. Instead, it’s the people who determine them now.
With so many video platforms and content to choose from — 150 video streaming apps are available across SEA,1 and over 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute2 — the audience is calling the shots.
Whether they’re watching K-dramas on the train or Blackpink’s Coachella performance in the living room, audiences are taking control of their viewing experience and creating their personal video universe. Everything from what they watch to where and with whom is according to their design, suited to their unique passion points and habits.
For one, they’re choosing to turn to YouTube for quality content every viewing session. Viewers across SEA, including Indonesia,3 Malaysia,4 Philippines,5 Thailand,6 and Vietnam,7 say YouTube is the No. 1 place they would spend their entire viewing session, significantly more than social media platforms.
The dynamic video universe is a boon for viewers. But for brands looking to further engage audiences, it’s perhaps never been more challenging to keep up with the complexity.
To help you reach your audience wherever they are, we surveyed viewers across the region to discern where their video viewing needs converge, and what truly matters when engaging them.
What matters when engaging SEA’s video viewers:
Here, we share our research findings, along with examples from brands that stood out at the 2023 YouTube Works Awards SEA, so you, too, can successfully multiply your business results by tapping into these audience needs and creative strategies.
Context for connection matters
Viewers connect with people and things that matter to them through the content they watch. And who they watch with, and their motivation for doing so, greatly influence what and how they consume content.
Across SEA, viewers may spend their personal “me time” connecting with experts or like-minded individuals on their favorite topics, such as DIY or cooking. But when they want to enjoy “we time” and connect with family and friends in a social setting, they watch immersive content shown on a big screen, such as a sports game. In Vietnam, for instance, 64% of those who watch YouTube watch it along with family, friends, and others,8 and over 33 million people streamed YouTube on their connected TV in a month.9
Audiences also decide how they watch based on their needs, and they seamlessly switch from discovering content to immersing in it. Indeed, this multiformat video viewing momentum is sweeping across SEA, and in Indonesia, for instance, 67% of those surveyed say they use short-form video apps to discover things they then watch longer versions of,10 splitting their viewing time between various different video formats.
In SEA, the context for connection matters to viewers:
To connect with viewers in every context and viewing session, Thai yogurt brand Dutchie used YouTube’s multiformat and multi-length videos to tell a humorous story. Its “Love Your Gut” campaign likens a poorly functioning gut to a careless delivery driver, and shows how its yogurt is key to a healthy gut.
Dutchie adapted its video into multiple formats, ranging from six-second cuts that piqued interest to three-minute videos that dove deeper into its story, and achieved a 4.3% absolute lift in ad recall and an 18.5% increase in brand relevance among Gen Z audiences. Its success in mastering creative excellence and media planning led its campaign to win The Grand Prix Award at the 2023 YouTube Works Awards SEA.
Creative collaboration matters
Video content that speaks to people’s passion points, whether on mainstream topics or niche subjects, is also important to viewers, and in SEA, people have access to an abundance and diversity of such creative content.
On YouTube especially, the total hours of content uploaded by channels in SEA markets has increased year over year. In Vietnam it grew by over 100%.11 The platform also has viewers, including those in the Philippines,12 agreeing that it has the most diverse content and is the No. 1 place for them to go deep with what they love.13
Of the wide variety of content available on YouTube, viewers are especially drawn to creator content for its authentic, creative touch. Indonesia’s top Shorts videos in 2022, for instance, were dominated by content from creators.
And creators, for their part, are empowered by YouTube’s creation tools and multiple formats to push beyond their creative limits and freely express their ideas. For example, MingWeiRocks, a YouTube Diamond creator from Singapore who has over 10 million subscribers, combines his passion for taekwondo with humor to engage audiences across multiple formats and screens.
Indeed, the bond that viewers have with creators is so strong that 88% of shoppers in APAC agree that YouTube creators give recommendations they can trust.14 And it’s why brands ahead of the curve are working with creators to develop content which has the personal creative touch that viewers love.
Pantene Indonesia, which won The Collaborator Award at the 2023 YouTube Works Awards SEA for its best-in-class creator partnership, went one step further by not only choosing to work with a creator, but one that broke the beauty industry’s norms.
Instead of choosing a female influencer with long, silky hair to advertise its conditioner, Pantene collaborated with YouTube creator Keanu Angelo, who is known for his bad hair day videos, to document the transformation of his unruly locks. The “Recharged Hair, Recharged Me” campaign’s short- and long-form videos drew 23 million organic impressions within 24 hours, and drove 121% growth in six months.
Investment in innovation matters
To effectively and efficiently engage SEA viewers, brands in the region need to keep up with people’s complex viewing behaviors at speed and scale. By combining the art of creating engaging content with the science of innovative ad solutions, brands like yours can connect with audiences in ways that matter to them.
With AI-powered YouTube campaigns, for example, you can tap into Google AI’s analytical, predictive, and generative capabilities to deliver the right content, at the right time, in the right format, to reach your specific audience efficiently and multiply returns.
Indeed, sales lift data from NCS shows that AI-powered Video reach campaigns earn 3.7X higher return on ad spend and over 2X incremental sales compared to manually optimized campaigns.15
Milo Vietnam, for example, tapped into the AI-powered Ads Creative Studio and Director Mix to analyze trending content and generate a whopping 400 creative variants most relevant to its Gen Z audience for the launch of its nutritional energy drink, Dynamind.
It then used YouTube’s Reach solutions to raise awareness, and drive further relevant reach among its audience, for whom K-pop is a passion point, with dynamic lineups and roadblocks on the BTS channel. The result of the campaign, a 2023 YouTube Works Awards SEA finalist, was a 14% uplift in brand awareness and 15% increase in consideration after the launch, and 118% sales compared with 2022.
Viewers in SEA have set the rules of video engagement. But savvy brands which are present on a platform that matters to people, and deliver creative content with the power of innovation, are well-poised to win over audiences and multiply results.
Learn about the most effective YouTube work across SEA here.
