For the sixth consecutive year, Kantar is honored to be an indispensable partner to YouTube for the YouTube Works Awards, a global submission-based program that champions the most creative campaigns that drive business results on the platform. As experts in objective measurement and advertising effectiveness, Kantar both designed the program and took ownership of the program’s entire process. To ensure objectivity, we have also crafted the judging rubric and overseen the judging process, reinforcing the credibility of the awards.
Achieving success on the platform
Kantar’s 2024 Media Reaction study reveals YouTube as the number one media brand for most preferred advertising platform, once again, and ranks second in brand safety and data trust among marketers. Given YouTube’s favorability and reliability, brands utilize the platform in innovative ways every year, pushing the envelope on what’s possible.
We have analyzed the strategies behind the success of the winning campaigns of the 2024 YouTube Works Awards. We distilled key insights from their successful campaigns to inspire marketers to continue achieving outstanding results on this platform.
Let’s unpack the key takeaways that stood out among the 2024 US winners.
From skip to seek: The power of purposeful content
This year’s winning campaigns are providing consumers with organic, added-value content which engages them with purposeful relevance. These ads feature distinctive creatives that attract viewers, making them actively sought-out and utilized rather than skipped. By understanding and catering to their target audiences’ interests, these campaigns are anchored on a solid insight and are able to treat viewers with useful content that invites continual revisiting.
- Nissan cleverly harnessed its insights on the success of LoFi music on YouTube and the LoFi audiences’ affinity to Nissan and electric vehicles in a 4-hour long LoFi animation video to reach its target audience. Nissan’s campaign prompted viewers to play the creative in their backgrounds while studying or driving, creating pleasant experiences associated with its first-ever all-electric SUV launch.
- L.L. Bean has taken knowledge-sharing to heart through its engaging series of How-To videos with its product portfolio weaved in seamlessly throughout. Leveraging Google Trends insights to identify frequently asked outdoor questions, L.L. Bean covered popular topics like “How to Start a Campfire” and “How to Get into a Kayak.” These videos aligned with the brand’s mission of encouraging people to explore the great outdoors and provided them with a practical toolkit of easily digestible knowledge. Additionally, L.L. Bean’s 1-hour ambient fireplace video provided a soothing backdrop for relaxation, enabling the content to be evergreen and further fostering positive connections to the brand.
- VLM and Wavemaker relied on YouTube for content and audience insights to help the U.S. Navy create compelling content that merited repeated exploration, providing an educational aspect within the assets. Targeting Gen Z through a series of challenge videos and leaning into the exciting educational content made being a sailor more approachable and proved as a useful avenue for Gen Z to learn more about the military.
Beyond boundaries
60% of the winning campaigns featured an element of the unexpected by breaking category conventions or venturing beyond the brand’s typical advertising style. YouTube is a platform that enables marketers to push boundaries and experiment. This year, brands are taking it a step beyond traditional advertising and doing more to drive engagement and stand out from competitors.
- VLM and Wavemaker helped the Navy break away from the stereotypical military recruitment advertising style through a series of long-form, challenge videos. Partnering with creators who best matched the content type, the ‘Sailor Vs.’ series entertained and educated viewers by showcasing diverse career options and bridging the gap between Navy and civilian life. Engaging Gen Z with a familiar content style on the platform that they love, the campaign successfully captured the interest of future Gen Z recruits.
- To steer clear of being defined by claims and competitive comparisons within the over-the-counter allergy relief category, Claritin took an unconventional approach and aimed to reduce pollen. Their mission was unexpected for an allergy relief brand, but it effectively educated viewers on the importance of tree diversity to plant more female trees. At the same time, Claritin avoided greenwashing and stayed authentic in showing its commitment to the environment.
- Nissan departed from the conventional car sales pitch and experimented in the LoFi space. The unexpected pairing of a car brand and LoFi beats in Nissan’s 4-hour long LoFi animation video created a non-ad-like environment, offering viewers a delightful experience while subtly emphasizing the Nissan ARIYA’s capabilities.
Immersive storytelling through shorts to sagas
Emerging even stronger as a theme compared to last year, many of this year’s winning campaigns utilize YouTube’s diverse range of formats to tell the story, drive home their message, and engage viewers. As observed by Kantar’s North America Creative Effectiveness Awards, using digital media in the right context is crucial. Effective digital ads are tailored to fit the specific context of each platform, optimizing ad length and ensuring contextual relevance.
Additionally, some winners also take advantage of YouTube as an immersive, audio-centric platform to elevate the experience through their soundtrack usage.
60% of the winning campaigns utilized diversified / mixed format campaigns.
- Booking.com leveraged YouTube’s diversified formats to help tell the story of a whimsical musical tour of vacation rentals and hotels where viewers experienced the joy of booking on Booking.com. The brand utilized a variety of formats—ranging from 30-second spots to bite-sized 6-second clips across skippable and non-skippable ads and Shorts to successfully drive its message across to online travel bookers. Bringing Melissa McCarthy’s singing voice to the forefront in this campaign complemented its storyline and effectively conveyed to viewers that booking is half the fun.
- Nissan strategically used a shorter 6-minute cutdown of its 4-hour Japanese-inspired LoFi beats video to drive traffic to its long-form asset. As mentioned, this 4-hour LoFi video offered viewers a calming experience to enjoy it in the background while engaging in daily activities. This enabled music to become an associative code with the brand, making the ARIYA experience part of consumers’ working memories and the Nissan brand top-of-mind for an all-electric SUV.
- VLM and Wavemaker worked with the Navy to strategically deploy several different ad formats, including 15- and 30-second spots, 6-second bumper ads, and skippable longform assets featuring full 7-12 minute episodes of the ‘Sailor Vs.’ series. They also utilized YouTube Shorts to promote its series’ trailer and drive viewers to explore additional content. By leveraging a diverse mix of assets, VLM and Wavemaker ensured a broad range of engaging experiences for viewers .
Looking to the future, these themes will undoubtedly continue to shape the creative digital advertising landscape. The 2024 YouTube Works Awards winners have set a high bar, connecting with audiences when, where, and how they’re watching.