7 Outstanding YouTube Ads You Need to Watch Right Now
Are you looking for a powerful tool that can help boost your business’ growth? Wondering, what the secret formula winning brands use?
Look no further than YouTube.
If you’re looking to grow your audience using the web, YouTube is the perfect platform. This multi-faceted outlet serves as a search engine, a hosting service, advertising platform, social network, and more importantly a community site.
Its no wonder this brilliant tool is utilized by most modern businesses. However, in order to launch a successful YouTube channel you need to create a plan to ensure that your video meets the goals of your brand and engages your target audience.
That being said, let’s take a look at a few of the most stellar YouTube ads and with the thousands of ads have been uploaded to YouTube since its inception, whittling down a list of top ads is no walk in the park. These brands have successfully struck a chord with their audiences and in doing so have helped redefine advertising over the last decade.
Its no wonder this brilliant tool is utilized by most modern businesses. However, in order to launch a successful YouTube channel you need to create a plan to ensure that your video meets the goals of your brand and engages your target audience.
That being said, let’s take a look at a few of the most stellar YouTube ads and with the thousands of ads have been uploaded to YouTube since its inception, whittling down a list of top ads is no walk in the park. These brands have successfully struck a chord with their audiences and in doing so have helped redefine advertising over the last decade.
1. Friskies: Dear Kitten
Purina’s Friskies brand partnered with BuzzFeed and came up with their oustanding advertising campaign, ‘Dear Kitten’. Friskies not only got the added bonus of engaging BuzzFeed’s fandom, but it was able to gain a lot of popularity because of its clickable content. What makes it so appealing is the fact that it doesn’t feel like an ad.
Although the video promotes cat food, there’s a lot more to it. It does a phenomenal job of elaborating on the unique yet universal quirks that cats possess. No wonder the first Dear Kitten video was able to earn almost 8 million views in its first four days online.
2.DollarShaveClub: Our Blades Are F**king Great
Right in the first three months after the startup posted the video on YouTube in the March of 2011, it racked up 4.75 million views. The credit for this, undoubtedly, goes to its tightly scripted video.
When you’re launching a new business and sharing a new idea, if you can get people to remember it, there’s obviously a better chance at success. – Michael Dubin, Dollar Shave Club Founder.
3. Orabrush: Bad Breath Test – How to Tell When Your Breath Stinks
Orabrush is now sold in more than 30,000 stores in 25 countries. It has become the number one tongue cleaner in the world, according to IRI data and featured in numerous publications — The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and ABC’s Nightline. However, the ride to success for Orabrush was no piece of cake.
A former biochemist and nutritionist, Dr. Bob “Robert” Wagstaff, invented the Orabrush tongue cleaner in the early 2000’s to help cure bad breath. However, even after a decade his invention hadn’t gained any traction and an expensive infomercial helped him sell a mere 100 orders. That’s when he decided to give it a last shot. He approached a university marketing class in 2009 and encountered a student who said he could sell the product on YouTube.
Offering the student his motorcycle as payment, Dr. Bob found success after years of false starts when a $500 video marketing the tongue cleaner as a bad breath remedy went viral. This strategy proved to be an instant hit and Dr. Bob began receiving a flood of inquiries from distributors around the world asking to carry his product in their stores. As a result, Orabrush became one of the first products to go from no sales, online or offline, to full worldwide distribution using YouTube videos exclusively.
4. Kmart: Ship My Pants
Kmart’s Ship My Pants ad campaign emphasizes playfully subtle humor to capture the attention of the audience. Although it received a lot of flak as many claimed that the content was vulgar and immature, it didn’t stop the ad from becoming a viral hit. The buzz-worthy video racked up millions of views on YouTube and thousands of likes and shares on Facebook while receiving positive reactions for its funny, light-hearted approach.
The ad managed to stir up plenty of chatter across the web, drawing lots of attention to the Kmart name – one that market analysts say has lost its relevance over the years, but nonetheless was a brilliant strategic move.
5. olvo Trucks: The Epic Split feat. Van Damme
Behold, Epic Split, the viral masterpiece from Volvo Trucks and agency Forsman & Bodenfors, is a genius take on boldness and creativity — the ad won a Black Pencil from D&AD and Best of Show at The One Show. The ad featured action star Jean Claude Van Damme and presents the dynamic steering of Volvo Trucks. In fact, it takes it a notch up in its clear attempt to reach beyond traditional markets.
6. HellPizzaNZ: Interactive Zombie Movie Adventure – Deliver Me To Hell
Deliver Me To Hell, created by littlesisterfilms for New Zealand-based Hell Pizza took to YouTube interactive storytelling approach. Although the contest only applies to New Zealand residents, it does give international viewers an terrific example of a virally-branded enterprise while leaving a strong impression on its audience.
7.Durex: #Connect
The Durex Connect campaign speaks volumes about how people are obsessed with technology today. It further goes on to emphasizing that this [technology] factor stands as the biggest challenge in a relationship. The campaign introduces couples to a new way to utilize mobile tech to up their game in the bedroom which resulted in the viral campaign grabbing millions of eyeballs.
Towards the end of the video, Durex brilliantly states that the only bedroom miracle that the tech-obsessed couples needed was simply the ‘off button’. Following the unprecedented international response, Durex developed an app that offers a simple solution – synchronizing phones to sleep together for improved intimacy and better sex life.
While these brands not only succeeded with their ad campaigns, they were also able to build a strong presence within the YouTube community. To ensure your campaign succeeds, its imperative you perform your due diligence, which is to say you must properly utilize all the features available to your channel — customizing your channel’s look, content distribution, playlists, video thumbnails, and video editing features.
