Multi-format video strategy: a secret sauce for YouTube success?

Among all types of content, video continues to be the undisputed winner in terms of engaging internet users. Statistics show video marketing will continue to grow in popularity in 2023, with 86% of businesses using it in their marketing plans.

When it comes to video marketing, brands have plenty of options and platforms to explore. Among all these, YouTube has a significantly larger user base and offers a variety of video content.

Recently, Google released a case study that shows that brands that adopted multi-format video as their primary marketing strategy for YouTube were able to drive great results in their campaigns.

Here is a glimpse of how the three brands Nissan, Les Mills, and Moet & Chandon used multiple video formats on YouTube for their success.

Nissan:

The goal of the company is to build awareness for its all-new electric vehicle, Ariya. As music offers a universal experience and YouTube provides multiple ways to tap into that art form, Nissan decided to experiment with YouTube’s popular lo-fi trend and created its own four-hour lo-fi video for the campaign. Nissan used skippable in-stream ads to drive an effective reach for its lo-fi video, as well as a roadblock on Lofi Girl's channel to boost the video's share of voice.

In the end, the campaign had a huge impact on audiences, received thousands of positive comments, and drew more than 7 million views.

Les Mills:

The company's goal is to increase the number of people who sign up for its Les Mills+ at-home fitness app. Les Mills intended to achieve this primarily through the use of shorts. It used a mix of vertical and horizontal videos for the campaign.

The campaign ultimately resulted in a 52 percent rise in click-through rates. Furthermore, Les Mills saw a 10% reduction in cost per acquisition and a 16% reduction in cost per impression.

Moët & Chandon:

The company has aimed to increase brand desirability by broadening its core audience. To accomplish this, the marketing team developed, The Perfect Serve, a tutorial series aimed at introducing Champagne culture to a new generation.

For which they included long-form videos as well as shorter, bite-sized teaser videos. And to reach out effectively, they ran two campaigns: one for viewers specifically streaming YouTube on their CTVs, and another for all other devices.

Both campaigns performed admirably, but the CTV effort was the most popular with viewers.

In this competitive digital landscape, catching audience attention is getting tougher by the day. But it is indeed a necessity for businesses to nail that art to attract new audiences to their businesses and beat their competition.

While short-form videos are gaining more traction with the popularity of TikTok, reels, and shorts, trying out various formats of videos is also critical for businesses, and the Google case study clearly shows that.

Here are the benefits we believe brands can reap by adopting a multi-format video strategy on YouTube:

It will broaden the reach:

While creating videos in multiple formats, brands will be likely to reach a wider audience that has different styles and preferences for video consumption. Some of the target audiences may prefer short, and some may prefer long. In recent times, brands are more inclined towards short-form videos and think investing in long videos is a little riskier.

However, Nissan’s campaign results proved it wrong. By aligning with the right trend, platform, and creatives, brands can still achieve better results with long-form videos. It is only the brands’ choice to explore different formats and find out how to get the most out of them.

It will boost SEO:

Creating multi-format videos will help brands significantly improve their SEO on the platform, as YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. Besides, by using appropriate keywords and tags in their videos, brands can easily attract relevant audiences towards them and increase their visibility.

It will improve the effectiveness of the campaign:

People moving towards CTV are on the rise, and CTV ad costs are relatively higher than other forms. Given this, it is crucial for marketers to try out every possibility to make the most of every penny they put into CTV ads.

With Google adding more CTV ad features on one side, by creating multi-format videos, brands can make their content resonate well with the audiences who watch YouTube across all devices, particularly CTV. The impressive results Moet & Chandon have achieved stand out as the best example. This way, brands can possibly improve the effectiveness of the campaign and meet both their marketing and revenue goals.

In a nutshell, we believe a multi-format video strategy on YouTube is definitely something marketers should consider adapting, as it has tremendous potential to help brands take their YouTube marketing to the next level.