With brands increasingly using short-form stories to deliver impact for their video marketing, we set out to find the most popular six-second ads on YouTube. The result is our first ever YouTube Ads Leaderboard: Bumper Ads edition, which celebrates 20 brands from around the globe that are delighting viewers with snackable spots.
Asia-Pacific, home of the haiku, appears to have also mastered the art short-form video ads, with almost half (nine out of twenty) coming from the region with three from Japan, three from India, two from Korea and one from Australia. The only country with more entries than either Japan or India is the US, with five.
Incredible accomplishment
This is an incredible accomplishment given that globally nearly 1 in 3 large advertisers are buying 6-second bumpers and 1 in 6 in-stream impressions on YouTube today are 6-second bumpers1. And the popularity of bumpers shows no signs of stopping - we have seen a 70% increase in the number of customers buying 6-second bumpers from Q1 2017 to Q2 20172.
Here is the global list:
Bumpers were designed with mobile in mind, for shorter sessions when people are in a hurry or on-the-go, and brands in Asia-Pacific have clearly seen the potential of making a short and sweet splash with their target audiences.
Top tips for successful bumper ads
What goes into the making of a top YouTube bumper ad? Here are the thoughts from some of the brands who made the leaderboard from Asia-Pacific.
1) Samsung (India):
Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung India commented, “The six second edit helped us deliver the core message “Unbox your phone” in the shortest possible time. It helped us build reach among our audience with desired frequency for recall and consideration.”
Sagar Prabhakar Mahabaleshwarkar, Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of Cheil India added, “We felt, the six second bumper format was a great way to compliment our long form ads.”
The six-second edit helped us deliver the core message “Unbox your phone” in the shortest possible time.
-Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung India
2) Mom’s Touch (Korea):
Sujin Myeong, Marketing Manager, Mom’s Touch commented, "The :06 video format was very intuitive and impactful in delivering the product's core feature -- “extremely hot”. Plus, we were able to produce many variations of videos easily. The simple “impression-only” metric also helped us to compare the media effectiveness among multiple digital ads.”
Dongyouu Kim, Senior Account Planner, from W Camp, Mom’s Touch’s agency added, “We strongly recommend :06 ads for clients who would like to highlight one single, strong USP."
3) Gionee (India) :
Nomit Joshi, Director Marketing at Gionee highlighted, "After our successful launch campaign, the challenge was to sustain interest. We decided bumpers were the perfect reminder. If your message can be delivered in 6 seconds then, why not?"
Rahul Marwaha, Executive Vice President from Interactive Avenues shared: “Bumper ads are a great frequency building tool for any campaign. We were convinced that a short, sharp message can do wonders to build top of mind recall. Progressive brands like Gionee saw this trend and have raised the bar.”
4) Optus (Australia):
Nicole Smart, Associate Director Acquisition Marketing at Optus, said, “The 0:06 format was the perfect vehicle to demonstrate our message ‘at the speed of Bolt’.”
Our audience has an insanely short attention span… The quick cuts and animated world created the perfect canvas for short, snackable content.
-Kristie Thistlethwaite, Creative Project Leader, The Works
Kristie Thistlethwaite, Creative Project Leader at creative agency the Works, shared, “Our audience has an insanely short attention span, so the whole campaign had to be instantly engaging and dynamic... Our one piece of advice is to create the campaign firstly for the small screen, not the big screen.”
Brands are trying out various models for mixing short-form ads into a campaign. While the rulebook for making great bumper ads is still being written as brands experiment more and more, these short-form ad best practices may help to get the creative juices flowing.
