YouTube Works, in partnership with the APG and Campaign, champions brands and agencies in the UK. The awards recognise the best-in-class advertising and effective campaigns on YouTube that deliver measurable business results through creativity and strategic thinking.
In 2018, entries rose by 30% and from this, twelve stellar campaigns were chosen whether they were examples of brand-building, taking a cultural stand or business-boosting. Below you will find who were crowned the winners.
Entries were judged equally on three criteria – how well is the story told, how big was the effect, relative to what could be expected within the category and the budget of the campaign, and how much did YouTube add to the effectiveness or efficiency of the campaign.
“Far beyond online views, 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.”
— Alison Hoad, Chief Strategy Officer, formerly at BBH and the 2018 Chair of Judges.
- Heineken UK and Publicis London: Igniting a Conversation to Grow the Brand
- Tesco, MediaCom, Cedar & BBH: Best UK Media & Creative Agency Collaboration
- The Scottish Government and Republic of Media: Best UK YouTube Integration
- NCS Trust, Ogilvy and Kindred: Best Use of YouTube for Good
- Hostelworld and Lucky Generals: Grand Prix Winner for Best Use of YouTube by an Advertiser
- Hostelworld and Lucky Generals: Winner
- BT Sport, AMV BBDO and Essence: Winner for Best UK Audience Insight
- EE and Poke London: Winner for Best Long-Term Effectiveness
- Robinsons Brewery and Return: Best Use of YouTube on a Small Budget
- Superdry and Iris Worldwide: Best UK Use of Ad Formats
- Essity: Libresse / Bodyform and AMV BBDO: Best UK Cultural Impact through YouTube
- Smart Energy and AMV BBDO: Winner
Heineken UK and Publicis London: Igniting a Conversation to Grow the Brand
Heineken wanted to ensure its “Open Your World” strapline resonated with its 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 audience agree that the brand stands for openness.
"The film was about starting a conversation and what better place to do that than YouTube? – Sol Ghafoor, Group Strategy Director, Publicis London"
Tesco, MediaCom, Cedar & BBH: Best UK Media & Creative Agency Collaboration
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.
"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
The Scottish Government and Republic of Media: Best UK YouTube Integration
The Scottish Government needed to reach an 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 audience saw the campaign and 7% reported a crime as a direct result.
"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
NCS Trust, Ogilvy and Kindred: Best Use of YouTube for Good
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.
"The results driven by the content are incredible."
– Craig Hayward, Director of Digital, NCS Trust
Hostelworld and Lucky Generals: Grand Prix Winner for Best Use of YouTube by an Advertiser
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.
"It’s a brilliant way of reaching young people at scale with entertaining content."
– Loz Horner, Strategy Partner, Lucky Generals
Hostelworld and Lucky Generals: Winner
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.
"We can reach consumers who not only like watching comedians but also love travel documentaries."
– Marek Mossakowski, Global Head of Brand, Hostelworld
BT Sport, AMV BBDO and Essence: Winner for Best UK Audience Insight
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.
"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
EE and Poke London: Winner for Best Long-Term Effectiveness
The telecoms company wanted to engage with a younger audience it knew didn’t watch “traditional TV or advertising.” Research revealed their 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.
"I can’t think of another platform that this would have worked as well on."
– Bogdana Butnar, Head of Strategy, Poke
Robinsons Brewery and Return: Best Use of YouTube on a Small Budget
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.
"YouTube became really powerful in the targeting options that we had, with affinity, location, demographics and psychographics."
– Guy Levine, Founder and CEO, Return
Superdry and Iris Worldwide: Best UK Use of Ad Formats
The clothes brand wanted to create a campaign to reflect the role of the jacket in the lifestyle of their 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.
"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
Essity: Libresse / Bodyform and AMV BBDO: Best UK Cultural Impact through YouTube
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.
"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
Smart Energy and AMV BBDO: Winner
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.
"People were actually seeking out the content and commenting on the videos."
– Sam Guinivan, Strategist, AMV BBDO
