Struggling to grab the attention of its target audiences, Australia’s Youi Insurance decided to reach them where they spend their time: YouTube. Here, Youi’s Chief Marketing Officer Hugo Schreuder explains how entertaining long-form content boosted brand engagement.
Goals
Engage potential customers
Drive brand awareness
Approach
Launched made-for-YouTube series “Who’s in the Car”
Served ads across TrueView
Used affinity targeting to reach the right audiences
Managed and optimised campaign in Display & Video 360
Results
4.5M total views
27% view-through rate
7—10% lift in brand favourability
$0.10 cost-per-view
We launched Youi Insurance in 2009 with the goal of offering tailor-made insurance quotes to home, car, and business owners across Australia.
At the time, our marketing options were relatively straightforward: We ran television commercials to create mass awareness and leveraged Google Search to get in front of consumers at that critical moment of consideration and intent. Things were simple and the business was thriving, but that was just the beginning of our journey.
However, consumer behaviour was rapidly shifting. We noticed more customers scattered across different channels and platforms, which made them harder to reach. Our target audience was spending more time on YouTube, so we teamed up with Emotive to create a series of made-for-YouTube videos that would excite, engage, and ultimately convert consumers.
Buckling up with branded content
As made evident by our name (Youi stands for “you insured”), we’ve built our products around our customers’ needs. To that end, we worked with Emotive to develop a YouTube campaign that would not only entertain but also build an emotional connection with viewers.
“Who’s in the Car” features stand-up comedian Katie Burch asking high-profile Australian celebrities like The Veronicas, Burgess Brothers, Wendell Sailor, Ryan Girdler, and Osher Günsberg awkward questions as she drives them around in her small, not-so-fancy car. The concept dramatises our brand’s key strength, which is asking more questions to get to know our customers better. It also aligns with our brand positioning, “We get you.”
We didn’t set out to make quick, forgettable ads. Designed as an ongoing, episodic series, “Who’s in the Car” encourages a long-term relationship with our brand in a way that appeals to our target audience. The first three videos making up season one ranged from three to nearly seven minutes.
Inviting the right users along for the ride
We served the videos across TrueView, YouTube’s skippable ads format. We leveraged in-market audience targeting to reach users who were researching or actively considering buying home and auto insurance, as well as affinity targeting aligned with the talent in the car. For example, the Wendell Sailor and Ryan Girdler video was served to rugby enthusiasts.
“Who’s in the Car” drives brand engagement, favourability
“Who’s in the Car” garnered nearly 4.5M views, but it was the engagement with the content itself that stuck out for the team. The average watch time across all three episodes was over two minutes, which is far longer than we ever expected given the length of the content.
Even better than views and watch time, the campaign drove a 7-10% lift in brand favourability for Youi. What’s more, the average cost-per-view was a mere $0.10. By executing the campaign via Display & Video 360,1 we were able to integrate audience data sources and aid our broader remarketing strategy.
The success of the first season reinforced our commitment to this format. We’ve increased our online video investment considerably over the last 12 months, and we’ve also begun investing heavily in Google Preferred.
We took a leap of faith in doing something different, and thanks to YouTube’s unique targeting and measurement capabilities, we generated very pleasing results. My team and I are super excited about the future. Yes, consumer fragmentation is real, and things are getting more complicated. But in today’s world, one of the best ways to generate customer interest is to create engaging content that works across devices. And YouTube is a great media partner to do just that.
