YouTube declares 45% jump in Indian watch time, regional language content leads

Recently, YouTube announced a whopping 45% watch time increase in India compared to the same time period in 2019. The online video and streaming platform refrained from revealing specific time figures, but commented that regional language content has arguably been the strongest driver behind the statistics.Sapna Chadha, Senior Director of Marketing for South East Asia and India at Google, said, “Today, one out three Indians consumes online video. YouTube’s appeal is in its ability to host diversity of content, which includes languages, and build strong, authentic connections based on this.”

YouTube Ads Leaderboard

For the first time, YouTube revealed its regional language advertisements leaderboard that consists of the top ten most-viewed ads in the second half of 2020. To everyone’s surprise, six Indian ads managed to secure a place in the list including:

The Taste of India by Amul (Tamil)

‘Goodknight Gold Flash’ by Goodknight (Bengali)

Sudeep and Boy by BYJU’S (Kannada)

Muhurat At Home by Kalyan Jewellers (Tamil)

The introduction of this leaderboard at the end of 2020 attributes to two critical observations. Firstly, marketing gurus have realized the importance of vernacular content and its ability to connect with native language speakers on YouTube. This could be the new marketing breakthrough for better sales and segue customized advertising based on regional language.

Secondly, YouTube’s regional ad leaderboard acts as a market signal for content creators as well as leading Indian companies to ride the bandwagon for better results and hint at regional language as a trend for 2021.

While some might question the statistics as a ‘one-time wonder’ due to the lockdown prevalent conditions in the country, the presence of internet in Tier-3, Tier-4 cities, addition of new YouTube users, and their willingness to consume content in respective languages cannot be written off.

It will be interesting to see if 2021 numbers can keep up with the current statistics as new variations of advertising strategies emerge from this change.