With just 10 days to build awareness, advertising agency Mediavest decided not to go with TV, which would require a longer lead time, and planned a 10-day YouTube campaign instead.
Ramzi Ghanem - EVP - MD Publicis Media – KSA, said in a Google case study that YouTube was appropriate as it has over 90% reach on the mobile population in Saudi Arabia. "The YouTube blast was a new take on YouTube – it provided us with an opportunity for the first time to build high levels of targeted frequency-controlled reach in a short timeframe,” he said.
Mediavest used the TrueView format, for which an advertiser is only charged when a user watches at least 30 seconds of the ad*. Additionally, Almarai conducted a brand lift survey simultaneously to see what was working well and what could be finetuned. Mediavest Riyadh planners studied the metrics daily so that the strategy could be modified on a daily basis.
The ads went viral. On the first day, they reached 3.5 million unique users in KSA, over a quarter (27%) of the YouTube population. By the end of the 10-day campaign, the campaign had reached 6.5 million unique users in KSA.
Interested?
Watch the powdered milk video in English or in Arabic. At the time of writing the Arabic version had been viewed nearly 7 million times
Download the Almarai case study (PDF)
*If the advertisment is shorter than 30 seconds, the brand is only charged when a user watches the full ad.