Christmas is only a few days away, but brands have started their Christmas campaigns as early as the first week of November. Right on time for when most people start to make their Christmas list…huh. We’re talking about brands from a wide range of industries – retail brands, food chains, financial institutions, entertainment companies. Even Twitter joined in:
Introducing the 2018 Twitter UK Christmas film, starring the unmistakable @JohnLewis..#NotARetailStore pic.twitter.com/O32CDkbwm0
— Twitter UK (@TwitterUK) November 19, 2018
Let’s take a look at some of the best YouTube Christmas campaigns this year, and examine what made them successful.
Tiffany & Co.— Believe In Dreams: A Tiffany Holiday (2018)
Let’s start with Tiffany & Co.’s Christmas ad which was released on November 16, 2018 and has garnered 21,621,453 views as of mid-December. This number continues to go up as the holidays are approaching, and since Tiffany placed a link to their online shop in the description, their sales will definitely rise too.
The campaign, entitled “A Tiffany Holiday,” is also being actively promoted on their Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Their posts on these social media sites are consistent with the campaign and the brand-specific #beliveindreams hashtag.
You could put a stick inside a blue box and I would be all “ OoooO a Tiffany stick!” 😍😂
— Shel🌻🌈 (@ShelYoutubery) November 16, 2018
Tiffany found it necessary to cross promote their campaign on multiple sites, use hashtags, and partner with celebrities. That should give you a hint on why Tiffany is a billion-dollar luxury brand.
Holiday — Share Your Gifts — Apple
Next up is the technology giant, Apple. They released their “Share Your Gifts” holiday campaign on November 20, 2018, and so far it has reached 20,276,553 views. What’s noteworthy about this ad is that Apple used end cards to lead viewers to two other videos – the making of the commercial, and the creation of the commercial’s music. The effect is two-fold: viewers get to stay longer on the channel, and Apple got to promote its products more.
The end cards made people more aware and attracted to the iMac, iPhone, and all the other Apple devices that were featured in those videos. Apple took advantage of the attraction by placing a call-to-action in the description which leads viewers to their online shopping platform. Genius? Yes, but anyone who wants to grow their YouTube channel and promote their products can and should do this.
Apple also used Facebook and Twitter in their campaign which garnered more than 400,000 views, and thousands of engagement on both accounts. No platform is an island, and you need to get off of YouTube and cross promote.
John Lewis & Partners Christmas Ad 2018 – #EltonJohnLewis
John Lewis & Partners have been doing Christmas advertisements since 2007, and it has become something of a tradition not only for the retail store chain, but for the whole British community and even for the global YouTube community too. For this year, John Lewis & Partners collaborated with Elton John, making him the first artist to star in a John Lewis advert. The video has garnered 12,302,973 since it was released on November 14, 2018.
The company banked on the fact that people are waiting for this video, like they do every year. They used a very specific hashtag, #EltonJohnLewis, on YouTube and on their other social media accounts. On Facebook, the video has been viewed 13 million times, and it has six million views on Twitter. Elton John’s presence in the video caused mixed reactions though, and you can see that in the comments section. Whether John Lewis saw this coming or not, it’s still great that the company made sure that their staff replies to comments. This builds relationships and encourages viewers to interact.
McDonald’s UK Christmas 2018 TV Advert #ReindeerReady
McDonald’s Christmas advert also made it to the list of the best YouTube Christmas campaign of 2018 with 1,705,807 views. It was released on November 18, 2018 with the hashtag #ReindeerReady.
The advert was promoted both on their Twitter and Instagram accounts, and they consistently used the brand-specific hashtag on these other social media accounts as well.
Shopping ✅ McCafé Christmas Drink ✅ Now time to get #ReindeerReady pic.twitter.com/cS5IhFwMtw
— McDonald's UK (@McDonaldsUK) December 12, 2018
McDonald’s also included a click-to-action in the description which leads viewers to their official website. There you will see that the #ReindeerReady campaign is also active – there’s even an animated eBook that children can read. That’s a strategic move right there, since they are targeting children who may not have social media accounts yet.
Erste Christmas Ad 2018: What would Christmas be without love?
Last on our list is an ad by Erste Group Bank whose headquarters is in Vienna, Austria, but has branches all throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The video was released on December 2, 2018, and gained 1,483,456 views in only three weeks.
Erste Group took advantage of the YouTube hashtag feature using variations of their campaign’s message, “Believe.” The campaign is also on Twitter with 10.5 million views so far and on Facebook with 38 million views. It has garnered thousands of engagements – likes, shares, comments, and retweets over all social media sites where it is being promoted. It also helps that the company engages with the viewers, if only to give them some important information about the video.
This may be the first time that people are going crazy over a bank and it’s not because of a loan or bailout. The financial institution has reached out to a lot of people worldwide because of their brilliant campaign and promotional strategies.
YouTube Christmas Campaigns 2018
These are our picks for the best YouTube Christmas campaigns, which is supported by the number of views and the engagement on each video. These YouTube ads pop up when people are watching videos on YouTube, but people are not clicking on the skip ad button. What made these campaigns successful? We analyzed the five Christmas campaigns and found out that there are YouTube growth tactics that are consistent with all of them:
- Interesting/relevant content: All of the ads tell stories related to Christmas. Most of them appeal to the emotions of the viewers, which is understandably at its peak during this season. The campaigns were creative, heartfelt, and interesting, which is primarily why they captured the attention of millions of people all over the world.
- Keywords: We looked at the source code of each video and found out that all of them used YouTube tags and keywords related to the holidays.
- Cross promotion: All of these campaigns didn’t stay on YouTube only. The video creators launched them on other social media platforms too. There are so many people on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter that may never know about the campaigns if they were only on YouTube.
- Calls to action: Each company called the viewers to action in different ways. Apple made use of CTAs in end cards to lead viewers to other videos that promote their products, while Tiffany and McDonalds placed theirs in the description.
- Hashtag usage: Most of the campaigns made use of brand-specific hashtags so that people could see the hashtag and use it themselves, while also building some brand recognition. #ATiffanyHoliday and #believeindreams automatically conjures up images of those blue jewelry boxes, while #ReindeerReady makes you think of Christmas and McDonald UK’s carrot bag.
McDonald’s is giving out free bags of carrots so you can feed the reindeer on Christmas Eve – https://t.co/klXmKhuZ37 🥕🥕🥕
— World Carrot Museum 🥕 (@carrotmuseum) November 20, 2018
The video creators of these YouTube ads are established corporations, but they still felt the need to employ the strategies mentioned above. They even allocate human resources to reply to comments which increases engagement rate, another important factor. This tells you that no matter how small or big your YouTube channel is, you still need to consistently apply promotional strategies and take advantage of YouTube features like hashtags and end cards. This way, you can grow your YouTube channel into what you desire it to be.
Date: December 21, 2018 / Categories: Explainer, / Author: Rich Drees
