Millennials Attracted To Top YouTube Ads In 2015

Millennials made up the majority of the audience for the Year-End Ads Leaderboard. These ads weren't strictly made for digital -- Clash of Clans' "Revenge," adidas' "Unfollow feat. Leo Messi," Budweiser's "Lost Dog," and Boom Beach's "Speech" also ran on other media.

More than two-thirds of their viewership of these four videos that earned 205 million views globally -- totaling nearly three million hours in watch time -- came from Millennials.

To understand how YouTube impacted the ability for brands to reach Millennials, the company studied 3,000 campaigns in the U.S. and looked at how total reach of Millennials would be impacted if campaigns had replaced some of their TV advertising with YouTube ads.

The findings suggest that without spending an extra dollar, 46% of campaigns would have benefited from a TV and YouTube combo, with an average increase in Millennials reached of 42% compared with TV alone. It's a topic that marketers will hear more about from JasonOwen, Vivint VP of acquisition, on Friday at the MediaPost Search Insider Summit.

Overall, YouTube takes a look each year at the top ads that resonate with people on the site. This year the company found that for the first time more people watched The Top 10 Ads on mobile devices than on desktop. The Top 10 ads had 470 million views in 2015, which is up from last year’s list, and nearly two-thirds of those views happened on mobile.

Overall views more than doubled in 2015, for the brand channels that had videos on our list. And subscriptions to those channels grew more than 80% compared with the prior year. Social conscience messages grew on this year’s list of the Top 10 ads. For the second year in a row, Always’ #LikeAGirl campaign had one of the top ads, and powerful entries from Ad Council, Fanpage.it, and Durex all proved the impact of longer-form ads on YouTube.

The Top 10 YouTube Ads Leaderboard for 2015 were Clash of Clans: Revenge; Hyundai: A Message to Space; Love Has No Labels, Diversity & Inclusion, Ad Council; Boom Beach: Speech (Official TV Commercial); Adidas: Unfollow feat. Leo Messi; Always #LikeAGirl - Unstoppable; Durex - #Connect - Official; Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge - Official Introduction; "Slap her": children's reactions; and Budweiser USA: #BestBuds | 2015 Budweiser Super Bowl Commercial “Lost Dog”

The overall top 10 trending videos of 2015, collectively racked up 550 million of views and were watched for more than 25 million hours, and the channels who make them have more than 40 million subscribers who tune in regularly watch their new content.

This also is the first year where a dance video made the top of the list. The top video was part of the launch marketing strategy for the song, with network Dance On commissioned to create an original video on YouTube.

The top video of 2015 shows how dance on YouTube is changing the way artists market their music. Artists have now started to work with online dance networks on YouTube to create viral dance sensations to launch new music, and whether it's the Nae Nae or Hit the Quan, they have seen success. 

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