How 3 top brands transformed their video ad strategies

A return to the TV screen is hardly a return to traditional media. In the U.S., the number of people who streamed YouTube or YouTube TV on their TV screens in December 2020 increased by 20% from the start of the year. According to Brian Albert, Google’s managing director of agency and brand solutions in the U.S., it’s a reminder that audiences have more options than ever before. 

Top advertisers like Nissan, PepsiCo, and Kimberly-Clark are following those audiences, transforming their video ad strategies to plan with a digital-first approach. Albert outlines three methods that are garnering big results.

Follow viewers where they watch. YouTube is one of the top resources for people researching vehicles. So Nissan’s creative team followed the YouTube ABCDs, a set of best practices for engaging audiences on the platform. Nissan saw 40% incremental lift on YouTube from the linear TV buy, and a market-share increase from 6% to 7.4% with the 2021 Rogue.

Drive sales by expanding reach. PepsiCo knew that soda drinkers were spending more and more time watching digital video, so the company decided to increase its investment in YouTube to test out what incremental reach it could gain for its Mountain Dew brand. YouTube enabled the brand to not only substantially increase reach, but also drive stronger return on ad spend in doing so, connecting with far more receptive segments. 

Let data drive creative. Streaming offered Kimberly-Clark both a range of new options — such as sequential messaging, retargeting, and short-form ads — and access to the behavioral data it needed to deliver personalized messaging. The streaming campaign exceeded expectations with 36% incremental unique reach and 78% unique reach on TV screens, leading the brand to focus on connected TV again the next quarter.

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