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YouTube Works for Brands Awards 2018
For the second year running APG has been YouTube’s partner in the YouTube Works for Brands awards. We think this initiative is worthwhile because it focusses on effectiveness and rigour and the winning cases meet a high standard of evidence and strategic thinking.
You can read the winning cases here. They offer a really interesting diet of approaches to YouTube as platform and a variety of work that reached the right audience to grow awareness or increased positive sentiment to drive sales; and proved highly effective as part of an integrated campaign or a standalone YouTube campaign.
We’re housing them on our site so that you can use them as a resource when planning campaigns that rely solely or partly on YouTube. We know the importance of data-driven insight, and these cases are excellent examples of how to do it elegantly and effectively.
As Alison Hoad, Chair of Judges for 2018 puts it: ‘Far beyond online views, time and again these cases revealed how effective YouTube can be for brand, business and culture. It’s a platform that truly gives brands the opportunity to have a voice, where elsewhere they may be drowned out. It’s a platform that allows for experimentation but where consistency pays huge commercial returns too.”
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Here is a useful guide to effectiveness including some excellent example of insight and some compelling stories.
2018 Winners
Winner for 'Open Your World'
Publicis London | Heineken UK
Heineken wanted to ensure its ‘Open Your World’ strapline resonated with its target audience and the 4.30 minute long-form video delivered. There have been more than 14 million views on YouTube alone, the video had a 65% completion rate and now 78% of the target audience agree that the brand stands for openness.
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"The film was about starting a conversation and what better place to do that than YouTube?"
- Sol Ghafoor, Group Strategy Director, Publicis London
Winner for 'Best UK Media & Creative Agency Collaboration'
MediaCom, Cedar and BBH | Tesco,
Christmas is a time for celebration but families need help to make the most of the holiday – especially when it comes to planning and preparing those all-important meals. Tesco was determined to prove helpful with relevant content including responsive and pre-emptive short videos. The supermarket is reaping £2 worth of profit on average for every £1 it is investing in the channel.
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"Data from YouTube allows us to identify the content we should be creating and therefore where our efforts are best invested."
- Alicia Southgate, Head of Content, Tesco
Winner for ‘Best UK YouTube Integration’
Republic of Media | The Scottish Government
The Scottish Government needed to reach a target audience of 18-40-year old males with the message that ‘revenge porn’ is now a crime. This audience consumes a lot of online content, so the agency created a video clip with a ‘sting’ in the tail to make its point: 41% of the target audience saw the campaign and 7% reported a crime as a direct result.
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"We know the power YouTube can have in terms of video content as it’s the ‘go to’ place."
- Martin Wilson, Comms Planning Account Director, Republic of Media
Winner for ‘Best Use of YouTube for Good’
Ogilvy and Kindred | NCS Trust
The National Citizen Service is a Government-funded programme devised to help young people to find and realise their potential. It turned to YouTube for its ‘Change Your Summer’ campaign to inspire sign-ups for the summer programme as 92% of its audience spends time on the platform. Collaborating with YouTube influencers the NCS created disruptive pre-roll ads that cut-through to deliver more than one million views.
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"The results driven by the content are incredible"
- Craig Hayward, Director of Digital, NCS Trust
Grand Prix Winner for ‘Best Use of YouTube by an Advertiser’
Lucky Generals | Hostelworld
Hostelworld faced both an awareness and perception challenge. To get on to the consideration list of young travellers and convince them hostels were no longer noisy places full of over-exuberant guests, it chose to create short TrueView ads. The campaign featured the celebrity Charlie Sheen and used humour to subvert viewers’ expectations of ‘The Machine’s’ behaviour. It reached 14.5m young travellers and 66% of those who saw the content said they were more likely to stay in a hostel.
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"It’s a brilliant way of reaching young people at scale with entertaining content."
- Loz Horner, Strategy Partner, Lucky Generals
Winner for 'Speak The World'
Lucky Generals | Hostelworld
Persuading a traveller to download the Hostelworld app brings them closer to booking a bed. The company worked with Google to create a translation tool within its app, giving people a reason to download, then devised a TrueView campaign to promote the functionality featuring comedian Phil Wang. Results included an uplift of 114,000 app downloads during the campaign, while the cost per app installation was driven down.
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"We can reach consumers who not only like watching comedians but also love travel documentaries."
- Marek Mossakowski, Global Head of Brand, Hostelworld
Winner for 'Best UK Audience Insight'
AMV BBDO and Essence | BT Sport
BT Sport faced the challenge of promoting its Ashes’ rights for a tournament being held in Australia, where the time difference wasn’t in the UK viewer’s favour. Using YouTube data, it researched other passions enjoyed by cricket fans and then devised a disruptive campaign featuring Geoff Boycott. The ads enjoyed a 16% lift in recall and positive shift in view-through rates.
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"Now we know there are these rich, varied sources of data we can tap into we can make future campaigns as compelling and disruptive as this one."
- Tom Harris, Account Director, Essence
Winner for 'Best Long-Term Effectivness'
Poke London | EE
The telecoms company wanted to engage with a younger audience it knew didn’t watch “traditional TV or advertising.” Research revealed the target audience watched YouTube and was football crazy, so EE partnered with Spencer FC and other video influencers to set up The EE Wembley Cup. The recent third iteration of the campaign topped 50 million views for the content in 2018, driving a 23% uplift in general consideration for EE and a 20% uplift in first choice purchase intent.
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"We were trying to engage a much younger data-driven audience. Where do they spend a lot of their time? For us, that was YouTube."
- Adam Phillips, Senior Digital Manager, EE
Winner for 'Best Use of YouTube on a Small Budget'
Return | Robinsons Brewery
Fondly regarded as an ale brand but apparently in terminal decline, Robinsons’ Old Tom needed a rescue plan. To promote a refreshed look and reaffirm its craft credentials, the brewer produced a low budget but engaging animated campaign showing the provenance and history of the brand. In an underdog success story, the beer featuring a feline image reversed its fortunes, whilst 80,000 plays and a 25% interaction rate helped lift sales by 81% year on year.
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"YouTube became really powerful in the targeting options that we had, with affinity, location, demographics and psychographics"
- Guy Levine, Founder and CEO, Return
Winner for 'Best Use of Ad Formats'
Iris Worldwide | Superdry
The clothes brand wanted to create a campaign to reflect the role of the jacket in the lifestyle of their target audience. British Grime artist Paigey Cakey starred in the hero ad and provided the soundtrack. Superdry enjoyed 164% uplift in jacket sales and by connecting store location with its YouTube account was able to track the online to offline conversion rate as well.
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"YouTube gives us an amazing ability to get brand engagement but also direct sales, something that is quite a rarity."
- Lauren Tiplady, Digital Marketing Manager, Superdry
Winner for 'Best UK Cultural Impact through YouTube'
AMV BBDO | Essity: Libresse / Bodyform
Bodyform took on the challenge of showing periods in a positive light and life as it really is for young women. The brand aimed to produce a long form piece of content with cultural resonance and succeeded, with the YouTube ad and the associated issues debated across social media. The brand saw its biggest shift in positive perception and dominated share of voice in the category.
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"You still need somewhere where you can go and just deliver a bigger story and a bigger message and YouTube is absolutely key for that."
- Margaux Revol, Strategist, AMV BBDO
Winner for 'The Power of 10p'
AMV BBDO | Smart Energy
Smart Energy GB had to fire up engagement for a low-interest category – smart meters – and came up with a strategy based on four YouTube passion points: beauty, gaming, tech and music. Influencers from each sector were given a challenge to meet with ‘The Power of 10p’ – i.e. 10 pence’s worth of energy. The hero content received 18 million views and the campaign ensured a 28% uplift in ad recall.
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"People were actually seeking out the content and commenting on the videos."
- Sam Guinivan, Strategist, AMV BBDO