Short-Form, Long Impact: Why brands love YouTube Shorts – CNBC TV18
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Getting the timing right can make or break a campaign. You could have the perfect advert – the right message, the right brand connect, and even the right celebrity; but if you miss the moment, you’ve missed the opportunity. Tentpole campaigns demand foresight and preparation, so you reach your audience just when their excitement is peaking.
The medium used to deliver that message is equally important. With 70 billion daily views globally, YouTube Shorts is at the centre of the action. Why? Because it combines this massive reach with fast, punchy, bite-sized content that gets the message across in under a minute – perfect for today’s time poor and attention poor audience. Add to that the ability to layer in demographic and behavioral targeting, and you have a formula for turning awareness into action.
The Magic Multiplier: Turning Tentpole Moments Into Sustained Engagement
But you always get more with YouTube Shorts. Beyond being a game-changer for tentpole moments, another reason marketers love YouTube Shorts is for its versatility. It isn’t just great for creating buzz; it’s about extending the shelf life of those moments.
For instance, YouTube Shorts thrives on virality. With their highly shareable format and seamless integration into users’ feeds, Shorts can help brands break through the clutter and noise and expand brands’ tentpole moments. We all know of at least one ad campaign that struck a chord with us, and that we shared with others who would see it the same way we did. Often, these viral videos are being shared long after the original campaign duration, giving brands that magic multiplier that comes from true resonance with audiences.
The platform also creates enormous flexibility through instant feedback loops. Unlike traditional tentpole campaigns that require weeks to analyse, YouTube Shorts provides real-time insights into what’s working. This means brands can tweak their strategies on the go, making campaigns more dynamic and effective, and much more memorable.
Amplifying Rakhi Moments: GIVA Jewellery’s Winning Strategy
GIVA Jewellery, a brand already familiar with YouTube’s potential, decided to take things up a notch for Rakhi, one of their biggest tentpole seasons. The challenge was clear: create massive reach and awareness while driving product consideration and purchases among their Gen Z and Millennial audiences.
The winning strategy was a two phase full funnel approach. GIVA kicked things off with a bang, deploying a two-week strategy designed to maximise reach and frequency. They utilised powerful tools like First Position on Shorts and CTV Pause Ads (Beta) to ensure their message was seen by the right audience at the right time, without creating annoying interruptions in their content viewing experience.
Next, the focus shifted to turning awareness into action. Over three weeks, GIVA optimised their campaign for maximum views with Video View Campaigns (VVC), while strategically using Video Action and App Campaigns to drive web and app traffic. Leveraging Google’s AI to optimise ad placements, and reaching the right audience effectively, these campaigns also drove traffic to their product page. Retargeting, lookalike, and custom intent audiences helped close the loop, turning interest into purchases.
The strategy was a sparkling success, reaching 73 million unique audiences, with an average frequency of 8.8 – covering 80% of their target universe. The campaign also saw 104% higher video completion rates than industry benchmarks, with a +3.7% lift in consideration among 25-34-year-olds, besting class averages. Here’s the kicker: the ~100M views were garnered at CPVs as low as ₹0.14.
For GIVA, it wasn’t just about reach—it was about resonating with their audience in ways that mattered. As Siddhant Singh, AVP Marketing at GIVA, shared, “Adopting a full-funnel YouTube Shorts strategy coupled with impact solutions like First Position Shorts & CTV Pause Ads helped us drive best-in-class brand and search lifts along with efficiencies never seen before.”
Beyond Launches: How Colgate Visible White Extended Its Reach with YouTube Shorts
When Colgate Palmolive re-launched Colgate Visible White, their goal went beyond simply creating buzz. As pioneers of the oral beauty category in India, they wanted to do two things: change the perception of teeth whitening from an oral care routine to an essential part of beauty and address consumer concerns about efficacy and safety.
Colgate’s team took a consumer-first approach, diving into the top concerns of young Indians when it comes to teeth whitening. Six carefully selected YouTube Shorts influencers, chosen for their relevance and engagement rates, crafted creative content to address these concerns in ways that felt authentic and relatable. Moreover, the campaign tapped into audience signals and insights to ensure that the right message reached the right audience. They also used advanced tools like ADH (Ads Data Hub) to track the performance of the Shorts campaign and gauge its effectiveness independently.
The strategy didn’t just win hearts and whiten smiles, but delivered incredible results for the brand as well. Reaching 23 million engaged viewers – a significant leap from the 3.5 million organically engaged, delivering 364% increase in search lift for branded queries, and best-in-class uplifts across the funnel, including a 24.9% rise in ad recall and a 17.9% boost in purchase intent, campaign not only reached 55 million users at a cost-efficient CPM of 17.5, but it also turned Colgate Visible White into a conversation starter in the oral beauty category.
As Swati Rao, Director of Marketing – Oral Beauty and Personal Care at Colgate Palmolive, put it, “Beauty & grooming categories are exploding in India. The learnings from the influencer ‘Shorts’ campaign have been incredibly encouraging, and we plan to leverage these for future influencer activations.”
Turning Moments Into Movements: The Power of YouTube Shorts
In a world of fleeting attention spans, YouTube Shorts is helping brands create moments that stick, stories that resonate, and results that matter. Whether it’s GIVA Jewellery leveraging Shorts to turn Rakhi into a season of massive reach and meaningful conversions, or Colgate Visible White extending its reach through an influencer-driven strategy, YouTube Shorts is helping brands to sustain engagement and turning moments into lasting movement.
With campaigns turning into cultural milestones, it’s no surprise that brands go farther, and get more with YouTube Shorts.
To know more about YouTube Shorts click here
