Execution

App Development Begins: February 1, 2018 UI Designs Finalized - February 12, 2018 First User Test - March 1, 2018 Focus Group Testing - March 2, 2018 Second User Test - March 8, 2018 Soft Beta Launch - March 13, 2018 Final Development Edits - March 20, 2018 Submission to Google Play Store - April 10, 2018 Public Launch of the Gerak app - April 25, 2018

The Campaign

Rexona has owned “movement” in Indonesia since 2015 through its Terus Gerak (Keep moving) tagline. Rexona wanted to help even more Indonesians move by solving a uniquely Indonesian problem, difficulty moving around the country. Only 7% of Indonesia’s 4,500 miles of road have sidewalks. The infrastructure is so poor, Indonesians rank last globally in average daily steps. This creates great difficulty especially for people with disabilities. The idea for Movement For Movement campaign spawned from this insight and the Gerak app was built as a solution for the handicap community to improve their mobility. To build this app, Rexona partnered with Google to leverage their Cloud Speech API and Dialogflow technology. These two technologies were the backbone of the app, enabling the conversational chatbot, that could understand voice commands in both Bahasa and English.

Creative Execution

Version 1.0 of the Gerak app has been live in the Google Play Store since the end of April. Gerak was engineered with Google’s Cloud Speech API and Dialogflow technology. Powered by its artificial intelligence capabilities, the Gerak app is a voice-activated chatbot that could direct people with disabilities to the most handicap accessible places in their area. Google’s Dialogflow technology was the backbone of the Gerak app. Dialogflow combines conversational interfaces and machine learning (Natural Language Processing) to create a natural flow of dialog with a user. This allows the Gerak app to recognize the intent and context of what a user says and deliver the most relevant result. New users of the app could choose between English or Bahasa thanks to Google’s Cloud Speech API. This neural network model is what gave Gerak the ability to translate Bahasa language voice commands in real-time. For example, if someone made a query to find a restaurant, Gerak would recommend a list of restaurants in the person’s immediate vicinity with the most handicap accessible traits (i.e. bathroom, seating, parking). Users could then request a handicap-friendly Grab car once they had chosen a place to go.

Expectations for Gerak were to raise awareness surrounding people with disabilities in Indonesia and providing them a real solution for their mobility challenges. This directly resulted in a partnership that will change mobility for handicapped Indonesians for years. Ride-hailing company Grab invested in 118 cars with handicap-friendly vehicles and trained drivers. This partnership pushed people with disabilities into mainstream conversation. Before this partnership, existing options were scarce, like ordering an accessible car 24 hours in advance. Now users could find an accessible place to go and easily get a ride. Within the first 90 days of Gerak being live, more than 10,000 people downloaded the app. This made Gerak the to #1 trending app in the “Travel and Local” category in the Google Play Store. With a rating of 4.4 out of 5, the Gerak app was not only being used, but loved by users.

Voice search is the future. Depending on your source, anywhere from 20-50% of all searches will be done via voice by 2020. The Gerak app was the first of its kind app built in Southeast Asia to utilize voice search as its native search functionality for people with disabilities. While voice search and the Google technology used at the heart of the app architecture are unique for Indonesia, it’s the creative use of the technology that drove the innovation. People with disabilities are often overlooked. Gerak took this audience’s problems seriously and built an app that helped solve their needs.