Article originally published in Carat Singapore's Mediascape January 2015 edition.
In April 2014, Google spent over USD25 million across 6 weeks to promote their YouTube stars. With a combined subscribers reach of 13 million, Youtubers Michelle Phan, Bethany Mota and Rosanna Pansino were featured in a US-wide campaign across online and offline media.
The ad campaign was a bid to attract talented DIY creators onto the platform to rival the content of Hollywood, but it also functioned to bolster a premium ad placement program on YouTube known as “Google Preferred”. Launching in the same period as the campaign, Google Preferred is a program that packages ad inventory of the Top best-performing YouTube content (from stars like Phan and Moto), making it available exclusively to advertisers who are willing to pay premium rates that rival that of traditional TV networks.
To market the beauty and baking vloggers star power and highlight the potential of YouTube influencers, images and videos of the content creators were pumped into a wide variety of offline media:
- TV spots in shows like Mad Men, The Voice & Modern Family
- US-wide magazine ads in Allure, Seventeen and Entertainment Weekly.
- OOH advertising on billboard and taxi screens plus wraps in subway stations and on subway cars in key cities like New York and Chicago.
- In-person appearances, including Mota walking the red carpet at the MTV Movie Awards (arranged by the media agency’s sponsorship division) and Pansino giving away Rovio-sponsored Angry Birds cupcakes.
A digital media strategy accompanied the campaign which included presence across desktop and mobile devices with video, display, paid social and search buys – some of which were (of course) on existing Google properties.
So, did the cross platform strategy work to boost the profiles of the 3 YouTubers?
Using Google Trends as the basic tool to plot the web search interest of all three stars, there were definite search spikes during the campaign period that fell to lower levels once the campaign was over – signifying that offline media buys does impact online consumer interests.
Additionally, Youtube reports that the trio’s viewership increased by 72% along with a fourfold increase in awareness and a 171% increase in their social followers. More importantly, key advertiser perception for Youtube also increased by 10.5%. YouTube are planning for a 2nd and 3rd wave, the latter of which will branch out into six international markets beyond the US.
By extending the awareness of their ad product platforms beyond their online turf, Google holds ambitions to broaden its ad revenue by capturing interest from traditionally offline advertisers. They have done so by showcasing the true power of Youtube fandom in action – by treating their Youtubers like TV stars on big billboards and having meet and bake sessions with huge fan turnouts to showcase the draw Pansino has on fans that transcends the online space.