In Detail
The response
YouTube knew that young people are not watching TV, and that money spent trying to reach them in this media channel was money wasted. But media agencies, who weren’t so plugged in to social, who needed proof of impact and who were often working to extremely tight deadlines didn’t share that point of view. We needed to grab their attention, remind them that YouTube is a powerful media channel for their clients and do so in a way that respected the creators who made YouTube great.
The story we needed to tell was one of the unique relationship between YouTube creators and their audience. A mutually beneficial exchange of ideas, conversation and content that had turned bedroom broadcasters like Humza, Joe Sugg and Suli Breaks into media powerhouses. We called it Made For You.
To show media buyers what they were missing, we elevated the best British YouTubers to mainstream status, by putting them into the mainstream media placements our target audience usually bought. We introduced media buyers to this new cast of content creators, with data about the size of their followings — often larger and more engaged than TV show audiences.
In tandem the creators themselves were all tasked to make films thanking their audience for making them into the stars they are - each in their own inimitable style. Coordinated to drop on the same day that London was wrapped in Made For You campaign assets. It was a love-story to Millennials from the voices they had elevateed.
I was part of the creative team tasked to figure out the overall approach and potential creative routes, Once Made For You was approved, my role was to develop out the narrative of this campaign and the publishing rollout.
I led the team to find the best of British YouTubers who reflected youth culture so strongly it would trigger a spontaneous and enormous earned media response from Millennials who saw their heroes on billboards, busses and DOOH screens, for the first time. I wrote copy for the contributing creators, including outreach content, toolkit content and sample scripts for the YouTubers to springboard off in their own style.
To maximise the real-time potential of YouTube engagement, I created a content calendar of all brand activation and developed a reactive strategy to capitalise on organic growth among fandoms.
