Company: YouTube, San Francisco, CA
Company Division/Group: Camp + King
Company Description: Camp + King helps makes brands conversation-worthy.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Specialty
Nomination Sub Category: Online Marketing Campaign of the Year

Nomination Title: YouTube LSTN

Tell the story of this nominated marketing campaign for the judges (up to 650 words). Describe the genesis, planning, execution, and results to date of your campaign.

There are 27 million small businesses in America, and capturing a portion of their advertising dollars represented a $3.3B opportunity for YouTube. YouTube wanted to inspire small businesses to consider advertising using YouTube video ads. However, while everyone knows that YouTube is a great place for entertaining video, few people would consider it a go-to platform to promote a business.

We found that while small businesses are go-getters in business, they're cautious in advertising. Small businesses perceived YouTube as a place for entertaining videos, not advertising. They were twice as likely to consider LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as a marketing platform for their business. However, because YouTube Video Ads are highly targetable, measurable and budget-friendly, they are the perfect medium for small business marketing.

Our objective was to create reappraisal of YouTube Video Ads as a viable medium for marketing a small business.

To break through and demonstrate the power of video ads, we developed the “Watch It Work” strategy. If small businesses could see how others have succeeded with YouTube video advertising, they could be inspired to use YouTube to grow their own businesses.

To activate the “Watch It Work” strategy, we sought out a real small business with an inspiring story: LSTN Headphones. For every pair of headphones LSTN sells, they donate proceeds to the Starkey Hearing Foundation to help restore hearing to a person in need. LSTN was using YouTube Video Ads to successfully promote their business, and by amplifying the LSTN story, we were able to inspire and educate other small business owners on the power of video ads.

We chose to run the LSTN ad exclusively on the YouTube video ads platform, further demonstrating the capabilities of the product.

The YTVA LSTN video surpassed all of our KPIs and became YouTube Video Ads’ most successful advertising effort to date, earning over 25 million views on YouTube.

In bullet-list form, briefly summarize up to ten (10) of the chief features and results of the nominated campaign (up to 150 words).

• YouTube Online Video View Count: 26 million
• View Count increased 1000% from the previous 2013 effort
• View-Through Rate improved by 17% from previous effort
• Cost per View decreased by 10% from previous effort
• Cost per Acquisition decreased by 18% quarter over quarter
• Brand Lift metrics increased by 74% (measured by customers who viewed the ad)
• Conversion rate increased by 34% quarter over quarter