YouTube is now being described as “where the world comes to watch video”. According to John Nicoletti, it has become a place not only for passion and learning but it has also become a place for people to spend money. 40% of people come to YouTube and purchase a product that they have discovered there for the very first time.

Examples of brands that have used video as their method of marketing included Marley Spoon who had the goal of increasing brand awareness and subscriptions. Using the YouTube first method, they were able to increase brand awareness by 25% and subscriptions by 52%. United Airlines in America realised that they could use search and videos as an effective method for reaching potential customers. Through their campaign, they were able to book flights for 17,000 customers.

CEO of Shinola, Tom Lewand explained his company’s success and discoveries throughout their marketing campaigning. Shinola is a watch manufacturer founded in Detroit with the intention to bring back manufacturing at scale and jobs to the area. Their success over the years has seen the company develop, firstly into straps for their watches and further branching out into other products such as bikes, audio and even their own boutique hotel. They have also partnered with other companies. Shinola employs over 600 people worldwide and has offices in New York, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Dallas. The brand wanted to become more than a watch brand and become known as more of a lifestyle brand where their stores are able to provide an experience for each sense. They want people to smell the leather from the straps, see the quality of the watches, be able to touch the products and even taste their “Shinola Cola’.

As Tom explained the company wanted to determine its potential for the brand within the watch category and beyond. Through this process they discovered a number of surprising things. They discovered they only had 6% of brand awareness, that meant 94% of people wanting to buy a watch had no idea who Shinola was. Through the use of video sequences demonstrating their ‘superior craftsmanship’ of the companies products, they had successful outcomes. The campaign drove a 71% increase in branded search volume and an increase of 138% in traffic to their retail stores.

Google is encouraging video creative with the release of Bumper Machine, a simple platform for crafting video creative for YouTube. Bumper Machine helps you easily create 6-second bumper ads for YouTube, making the platform more accessible for brands without video teams. Google has found that users respond well to the snappier narratives found in bumper ads. If you have existing YouTube campaigns bumper ads will work in tandem, and Google’s machine learning can automatically shorten the longer form ads to 6-seconds

Key takeaways that were highlighted by Tom based on his company and their findings were that companies should not put their marketing strategies in silos, instead approach video and search as a unified strategy. He also suggested looking beyond the last-click revenue to capture the full value of video and to stay focused on things that differentiate your brand from others.

You can break down good video creative into 4 sections, or, ABCD – Attract, Brand, Connect, Direct. Check out the dot points below to help get you thinking about video creative and how it might be what you need to take your brand to the next level.

Attract

  • Get attention right from the start
  • Leverage familiar faces and assets
  • Vary your creative styles

Brand

  • Brand naturally and with purpose – when and how is the brand introduced?
  • Define your ad objective and build around it
  • Make your brand part of your story

Connect

  • Build an emotional connection
  • Pair good audio and visuals together
  • Address the camera/user

Direct

  • Make your calls to action clear and useful

 

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