BIG SIS CHATBOT BY SPRINGSTER

CASE STUDY SUMMARY:

In 2018, Springster had an average of one million users across the globe visiting its site every month and asking questions about diverse topics ranging from sexual health to economic empowerment. Springster couldn’t offer to its one million users a one-to-one personalised conversation with a human moderator. So we turned to new developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and chat applications to develop a chatbot prototype that would enable Springster to have conversations with girls at scale. Our first task was to identify the role that a chatbot could play in a girl’s life.

Our research showed that when it came to sexual health questions, girls were often shamed by other girls when asking questions publicly. Even using a pseudonym on our Springster website, some questions were deemed too controversial to be discussed openly online. Girls unanimously reported struggling with the social stigma attached to these topics. They felt they couldn’t turn to their relatives or to their peers without facing moral judgement. They shared often having complex relationships with their peers, not fully trusting them and being scared to be gossiped about. And even amongst the girls who had friends they trusted, they felt the advice given was often incomplete or incorrect. 

From South Africa to the Philippines, girls had an irrepressible thirst for reliable and open-minded information on sensitive sexual health questions. So we decided to design a chatbot to provide them with a private, one-to-one, always-on space to access complete and judgement-free advice on any sexual health questions they had. 

Besides our fieldwork research revealed that providing information accuracy and conversation privacy wouldn’t be enough for girls to regularly engage on this complex topic. Building trust was critical for girls to dare open up on intimate topics such as sex, contraception and relationships. And the figure that girls would most likely trust to discuss sex and contraception was a Big Sister.

That’s how Big Sis was born! Unlike the traditional NGO-funded sexual and reproductive health chatbots, Big Sis would debunk the common misconceptions on sex, contraception & relationships while offering a fun and engaging conversation experience to which girls could relate.

Link to Big Sis on Messenger or WhatsApp: +27 60 074 78 37.

RESULTS:

• In 4 weeks, 85k girls clicked on our Facebook ads to start a chat with Big Sis. (Equated to a 5% CTR, which was 2X higher than our usual campaign average CTR).

• 4k unique users interacted with Big Sis. (This equated to a 4% ad-to-bot conversion rate, which was low and became the focus of our next optimization phase)

• Up to 90% of girls who started chatting with Big Sis about a topic completed that topic before ending their session.

• 82% of girls surveyed would recommend Big Sis to a friend.

• 36% of girls improved their understanding of topics after reading content (based on pre-post quiz results).

• “ I love her because she tells the truth and also helps those like me who lack information about protecting ourselves from sex.” Girl, South Africa

• In 9 months, we proved the concept that a chatbot, available on a social chat platform, was an effective channel for delivering sensitive SRH advice to girls at scale. (Springster internal testing report, 2018).

Notes:

• I was Brand Director for Springster at Girl Effect and worked with a team of Content, UX, Gender and M&E specialists.

• Due to a limited budget, we only launched a prototype to ‘prove concept’ and attract funding.