In a new era of entertainment, billions of fans engage with the content and creators they love most on YouTube, and brands are tapping into new ways to connect with viewers. And the most successful advertisers are finding that simply having a presence isn’t enough to move the needle. They’re reimagining ways to make even more meaningful connections on the platform with deeply engaged audiences: YouTube.
And their strategies are working. Last year, Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome showed that YouTube delivered higher ROI than Linear or BVOD for 82% of brands.1 And this year, they found that YouTube delivers 2.2X the long term brand impact of other platforms.2 Plus, it delivers the highest ROI of all CTV providers – 23% higher than the nearest competitor.3
Discover how brands across Australia and New Zealand are maximising their YouTube potential, and delivering impact across short-term performance and long-term brand building. Here are three YouTube success stories originally presented at Brandcast 2024 in Sydney.
McDonald’s goes multi-format: How YouTube helped increase Big Mac sales
In Australia, McDonald’s is continually focussed on their objective to be the country’s most-loved quick service restaurant. This means adapting their marketing strategies to swiftly meet changing consumer behaviours — and platforms that deliver proven short-term and long-term results are a critical component to keeping them ahead of the competition.
Together with their agencies OMD and DDB Sydney, McDonald’s recognised YouTube’s proven ability to deliver results across multi-format storytelling. For their recent Big Mac “Original Mouthful” creative campaign, they leveraged YouTube’s diverse audiences and formats, optimising long and short form ads with media mix modelling data to maximise ROI.
The result? Beyond sending the country into a multi-generational jingle battle, McDonald’s saw a 78% increase in “Big Mac” Google searches during the campaign.4 Three weeks after the campaign launch, sales of the Big Mac range increased by 60% — proving that the iconic activation drove real impact.5
Mecca’s YouTube glow-up: How creator partnerships drove big outcomes
With an ambition to be the world’s most-loved beauty destination, Mecca is always finding creative ways to capture attention and drive value for its customers. In the face of intensified competition in the beauty market, Mecca and its media partner Resolution Digital advanced their YouTube strategy to harness its full-funnel potential across Australia and New Zealand.
Wanting to reach many diverse audience segments effectively and authentically, they adopted an always-on YouTube strategy to engage customers across a longer decision-making process. They forged strategic partnerships with creators who integrated products into their skincare routine videos — plus amplified this content through video reach and Demand Gen campaigns.
This enabled Mecca to connect with harder to reach audiences, boost brand consideration, and achieve impressive increases in both brand preference and in-store sales. For example, video reach campaigns engaged users and drove awareness for Shiseido products — which saw a 3.6% lift in users choosing Shiseido after viewing Shorts ads.6 Plus, they achieved a 1.9% lift in users choosing Shiseido in stores, far exceeding the CPG category benchmark of 0.6%.7
Universal Pictures’ box office success: How YouTube’s premium placements defied challenges of an evolving media landscape
For Universal Pictures, the increasingly fragmented media landscape can make it challenging to reach audiences through traditional channels. As a long-time advocate for YouTube, they knew it was the right platform to promote the next movie in a popular franchise. With strong storytelling, Universal Pictures and its agency EssenceMediacom layered a mix of premium placements, including YouTube Select, to connect with moviegoers.
YouTube’s creative and engaging format let the movie characters’ unique humour shine across YouTube Select’s verticals, including a focus on CTV for a more theatrical experience in the living room. And with YouTube’s broad reach and diverse audience segments, Universal Pictures successfully reached audiences across demographics essential to driving performance at the box office.
The YouTube campaign drove a 7.2% lift in awareness for the movie,8 with a relative search lift of over 41%.9
YouTube works for ANZ: How the bank balanced short- and long-term growth
ANZ, New Zealand’s oldest and largest bank, serves as a prime example of how marketers can overcome the dual challenge of balancing long-term brand building with short-term performance goals. Faced with challenging market conditions, ANZ recognised the opportunity to amplify its brand on a platform that could deliver on both.
The bank knew that audiences in New Zealand were on YouTube, leading them to launch a long-form storytelling campaign on the platform. This was paired with performance and product-focussed marketing to drive results at the bottom of the funnel. And by leveraging mixed media modelling to measure results and fuel continuous growth, ANZ achieved a remarkable 52% year-on-year increase in ROI on YouTube.10
Check out this episode of “The Long and The Short of It,” where Mark Ritson speaks to ANZ’s CMO Astrud Burgess, and learn how the bank scored its most successful brand campaign to date.
With audiences finding their flow state more on Youtube than any other video-based platform,11 and creators producing studio-quality content across all formats and screens, YouTube’s unique ecosystem is an important place for brands to drive meaningful connections. With the right strategies and tools, you can go from simply having a presence on YouTube to tapping into the platform’s full potential – and this is what can unlock powerful results.
Engaging for fans, effective for brands, discover more reasons why there’s only one YouTube with the latest insights presented at Brandcast 2024.
