A global social media and technology company needed to understand how young adults choose where to watch video online, and how its own video experience compared to the alternatives. Markets included: India, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico.
Mantaray Africa led the research across four global markets in the Global South. In each market, the team ran a 7-day diary study with 30 participants, capturing video-watching habits, platform choices, and perceptions of technical quality in the moment. This was followed by hour-long, one-on-one in-depth interviews with 12 participants per market, selected from the diary group, to probe the reasons behind their behaviour. The sample was balanced between users of the company's full app and users of its lightweight, data-saving version, allowing a direct comparison between the two experiences.
The goal was to understand what motivates young adults when they choose a platform for video, and which factors shape their loyalty, from personal habits and emotion through to technical quality, social influence, and app design. A particular focus was how the company's own video quality and performance compared to the platforms people reach for every day, and how that comparison played out across very different markets and device types.
The research showed that platform choice is multifactorial. Video quality matters, but it is only one part of the decision. Users accept lower replay quality when content feels locally relevant, emotionally resonant, or socially trending, and cultural connection often outweighs technical perfection. Technical glitches such as buffering, low resolution, and crashes do affect the experience, though a single glitch rarely shifts loyalty unless a competing platform feels more dependable over time. The two app versions are judged differently: users of the lightweight version are more forgiving and value data savings, while users of the full app expect more and tolerate less latency or graininess. Across all of this, video quality did more than affect satisfaction, quietly building or eroding trust in the platform's wider brand.
These insights are informing strategic conversations around platform optimisation, feature prioritisation, and user education, helping the client move from video that is merely "good enough" toward experiences that feel trusted and genuinely enjoyable for young audiences worldwide. The project also showed the value of local research teams on the ground, whose contextual knowledge surfaced nuance that would be hard to reach from the outside.
