YOUTUBE BRANDCAST DELIVERED SOUTHEAST ASIA

TitleYOUTUBE BRANDCAST DELIVERED SOUTHEAST ASIA
BrandGOOGLE ASIA PACIFIC PTE LTD
Product / ServiceYOUTUBE ADS
CategoryC06. 360 integrated Brand Experience
EntrantGOOGLE ASIA PACIFIC Singapore, SINGAPORE
Idea Creation GOOGLE ASIA PACIFIC Singapore, SINGAPORE
Production EVOLVED GROUP Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Post Production EVOLVED GROUP Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Matt Clack Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd Creative Head of Brand Studio APAC
Jane Delany Evolved Group Client Lead & Senior Producer
Steve Wylie Evolved Group Managing Director
Gaurav Chauhan Singh Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd Events and Experiences Lead

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

This entry reinvented a single-day, physical B2B marquee event into a six-week client engagement program that scaled across 6 Southeast Asia markets. Through understanding client needs, redefining personalisation, and leveraging new technologies, we delivered our first-ever personalised digital experience that pushed the boundaries of digital event execution and client engagement. Multiple touch points - including event website, media content drumbeat, personalized viewing kits and creator-influencers - were activated to deliver content that addressed client challenges and cultivated brand affinity. Despite the pandemic, our brand reached more clients and partners this year than ever before, and increased their intent to spend.

Background

Each year, our company organises its flagship event for advertisers in each market, where we share the latest trends, evolving consumer behaviours, and advertising opportunities they can leverage. This premium event is aimed at exciting, inspiring, and educating advertisers on how our platform can help reach their target audience and drive business results. Due to the pandemic, our platform's role has gained even more importance as marketers looked to digital channels to connect with their audience and grow their brand. More than ever, we saw a unique opportunity to help marketers feel more connected to our brand, internalize the excitement consumers feel about the platform, and realize why our platform needs to be a strategic part of their media plans. With the safety of our guests being of top priority this year, the event had to be held virtually across 6 Southeast Asia markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam).

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Picking up on our brand proposition of “Massively Personal”, we wanted to showcase how our platform has the most expansive content, where users can watch exactly what they want, when they want, instantly. They would have the power to choose the content they are passionate about, delivered in a clear and concise manner. To ensure engagement and deliver helpful insights, we sought to provide a personalized experience for every attendee in our event format and messaging. The 1-day offline experience is reimagined and transformed into a 6-week, hybrid offline-online client engagement program which comprised three phases. The program would take viewers on a first-of-its-kind experience that would see them become directors of their own adventure to find personally relevant content that they never knew they’d enjoy. These three phases would demonstrate our proposition in a way that the audience can experience themselves, showcasing how our platform is undoubtedly, Massively Personal.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Phase 1 centered on pre-show engagement. Clients were invited to build their own show by selecting their favorite creator as their show host, choice of music entertainment, and content interests. They inputted this in a dynamic registration site which would then influence their Phase 2 experience. To pique audiences’ excitement, teasers were amplified through media channels. Phase 2 delivered an immersive, power-packed 30 minutes bespoke show on a website. With 18,535 unique video segments rendered at scale to generate 3,100 personalised films, viewers felt like the show was made exclusively for them. Personalised viewing kits delivered day-of further added an element of surprise, with kits printing clients' names and providing curated gifts. For example, music-aficionados got speakers, while cooking-enthusiasts received cookbooks. Phase 3 commenced post-show, where clients accessed on-demand content catered to address their marketing objectives. To help clients resolve specific advertising challenges, deep-dive workshops were also conducted.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Instead of having each local marketing team execute their own virtual event, our marketing teams across six SEA countries joined forces to optimise effort and resources. Ideation and development was done centrally so local resources could focus on localisation and execution. Since each country team did not have to reinvent the wheel, we managed to deliver the event in just two months. By adopting a modular approach to the show and utilising a proprietary video-stitching technology, we enabled six local shows that put personalisation at the heart of it all. This involved programmatically combining various video segments, rendering individual names that appeared 3X on the show, and uploading into YouTube to generate a personalized link for each attendee. The swappable modules allowed us to feature a mix of local insights and regional announcements, making viewers feel the event was 100% local even though we worked across markets and shared content.

List the results (30% of vote)

Venturing into a new territory of scaled personalisation applied to a digital event (or six of them) produced incredible results. While an offline event usually attracts 300-500 attendees, the show generated 5K+ marketer site visits. Average watch time landed at 22/30 minutes. More than 60% of viewers watched 100% of the show, and 40% returned to the site to rewatch or catch up on video-on-demand playlists. When hosted on YouTube, these videos garnered 1.3M+ views in total. Post-premiere, we leveraged social, owned and paid media to reach an additional 16.5M industry professionals. Over 100 related stories across 86 media outlets published highlighted how our platform has been integral to people’s lives throughout the pandemic, and how brands used it to deliver sustainable value. These efforts culminated in significant perception lift: 95% agree that our brand inspires them to use digital marketing to grow their business; 7/10 plan to invest more.

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