YouTube Works Awards

YouTube Works Awards

Open for submissions until March 8, 2023
YouTube Works Awards

About the Awards

Over the past decade, marketers have redefined how they communicate with consumers. From the heartwarming to the heart-racing — and everything in between — YouTube has seen how incredible digital content can drive equally powerful results.

The YouTube Works Awards, in partnership with Kantar, celebrate and champion the brilliant minds producing the most innovative and effective campaigns on YouTube in the past year.

About the Awards

Categories

1

Creative Visionary

Celebrating the campaign that executed the most captivating and original creative vision.

This category champions your singular vision of creating something exciting and wholly original. How did your story punch through the page and onto the screen? What key creative decisions were made along the way to delight and excite? This category celebrates the creative milestones that made your campaign effective, bold, and unforgettable.

2

Masterful Media Planning

Celebrating the campaign that best exemplifies brilliant media planning. From ideation to execution, this campaign soared thanks to a stroke of media planning genius.

Did you delight your intended audience with the right story at the right time? Did you guide your campaign with compelling media insights that brought your creative to life? This award recognizes the vital role of media planning and strategy in separating the good campaigns from the great.

3

Big Screen, Bigger Results

Celebrating the campaign that masterfully used the TV screen to reach viewers and drive results.

We’re on the hunt for YouTube Connected TV-first campaigns that use the big screen to make a big impact on their awareness and consideration objectives. How did you fine-tune your creative for the big screen? Did you set out to captivate audiences watching YouTube from their living rooms?

4

The Changemaker

Celebrating the campaign that walked the walk on social or environmental issues.

We’re looking for campaigns that demonstrate a brand’s fierce commitment to diversity, inclusion, sustainability, environmental issues, or other social causes. How did your campaign balance your brand’s purpose with a tangible impact that extends beyond the bottom line? How did you inspire and empower your audience to take action?

5

The Underdog

Celebrating the campaign that beat the odds and made big waves.

We’re looking for campaigns from small or medium-sized brands (think businesses with 1,500 or fewer employees) that had big-name ambitions and achieved the results to match. How did you transform limited resources into major impact? What brilliant creative idea or novel consumer insight helped your campaign punch above its weight?

6

Brands as Creators

Celebrating the campaign that best demonstrates brands behaving like creators.

We don’t just mean channels with flashy content or brands that partner with creators — we’re looking for brands that show us that YouTube is in their DNA. This brand regularly crafts content informed by consumer trends and knows how to nurture passionate online communities. In what ways did your content meet audiences where and how they’re watching? How did you deliver entertainment and inspiration — just like a creator would?

7

The Shapeshifter

Celebrating the campaign that best adapts original storytelling for formats of all sorts.

We want to see how you flexed your chameleon colors for different viewing contexts — whether it’s on the go on mobile or relaxed in the living room. When did you use different ad formats — long, short, vertical, or skippable — to meet your audience on their terms? How did you navigate the changing tides of what viewers expect from their video content?

8

Grand Prix

Celebrating the most effective, creative, and innovative campaign that also drove exceptional business results.

The Grand Prix is our top prize; awarded to the campaign that breaks ground in multiple ways. This isn’t a category you can enter, but one you can hope to win if you show that your campaign checks all of the boxes.

How it works

Submit your best work from 2023 to be reviewed by our panel of industry leaders.

Our judges will select the winners across a number of awards categories and a Grand Prix will be awarded to the submission that best demonstrates brilliant results, storytelling, and effectiveness.

How it works

Our 2023 judges

They’ve been there, done that, and got a few trophies themselves. Our judges will bring specialized expertise and significant experience across the industry and category spectrums.

Adriano Matos

Adriano Matos

Global Executive Creative Director

Leo Burnett

Amanda Richman

Amanda Richman

CEO, North America

Mindshare

Ashwini Karandikar

Ashwini Karandikar

EVP, Media Data & Tech

4A's

Denise Truelove

Denise Truelove

Global VP Brands, Mars Petcare

Mars

Jonathan Daly

Jonathan Daly

Head of Communications Strategy,

Droga5

Lex Beltrone

Lex Beltrone

Group Creative Director,

FCB New York

Lisa Giacosa

Lisa Giacosa

Chief Investment Officer

Spark Foundry

Liv Lewis

Liv Lewis

Executive Vice President

EGAMI Group

Margaret Johnson

Margaret Johnson

Chief Creative Officer and Partner

Goodby Silverstein & Partners

Stacey Stewart

Stacey Stewart

Chief Marketplace Officer

UM

Stacy Martinet

Stacy Martinet

Vice President, Marketing Strategy and Communications

Adobe

Tiffany Warren

Tiffany Warren

President and Founder

ADCOLOR

Tyler Bahl

Tyler Bahl

VP and Head of Marketing

Activision

1

Contest begins

January 25, 2023

2

Submissions end

March 8, 2023

3

Winners announced

June 2023

HOW TO SUBMIT

Best practices

Our judges are looking for campaigns that have creatively, strategically, and effectively leveraged YouTube to achieve a clear business impact. Make sure you set the scene and be clear about your KPIs. The metrics you provide will help our judges understand your work and the challenges of your category and marketplace.

Helpful hints:

  • Consider co-writing your submission; media and creative collaborations help to tell the full story
  • Tell a story with a beginning (objectives), middle (approach), and end (impact)
  • Stick to simple and concise
  • Include critical context around your creative
  • Remember we need all relevant media referenced in your submission
  • Note any factors external to YouTube that could have impacted results
  • Share as many metrics as you can and include objectives, KPIs, and benchmarks
Best practices

How to enter

Identify your most effective YouTube campaigns from 2022, review the Terms & Conditions, and fill out the submission form below.

The YouTube Works Awards are easy to enter. Even better, it’s free. So if you’re part of a marketing, media, creative, or agency team, show us your best-in-class digital work for your chance to be seen around the world.

Questions? Contact us at youtube-works-us@google.com

How to enter
YOUTUBE WORKS AWARD WINNERS

2023 Winners

Brands and agencies from across the industry brought forward 2022’s most creative, compelling, and effective campaigns to the YouTube Works Awards. Our panel of expert judges selected 6 outstanding winners across 8 categories

Grand Prix
Big Screen, Bigger Results
Grand Prix
Big Screen, Bigger Results

Uncomfortable Truths

MassMutual, Giant Spoon, Grey

MassMutual wanted to drive awareness around a bold topic: money. The brand recognized that conversations about finances are important but aren’t always easy to have. It needed a creative way to grab attention and inspire people to tune into the topic. So it created a lighthearted campaign featuring diverse families having conversations about their financial futures amid unexpected events. The result was an intimate, fly-on-the-wall experience.

Creative Visionary
The Changemaker
Creative Visionary
The Changemaker

Toxic Influence

Dove, Mindshare, Ogilvy

Dove leaned into the power of long-form video to foster engagement. Over the years, Dove has fearlessly taken on the subject of real beauty to address timely issues. Recognizing how important parents’ voices are in shaping children’s self-esteem, the brand created nearly four-minute videos as part of its recent Dove Self-Esteem Project campaign. The videos featured face-mapping technology that put toxic advice into mothers’ mouths, leaving viewers captivated.

Masterful Media Planning
Masterful Media Planning

Won’t Leave You Guessing

Mailchimp, DEPT

Mailchimp embraced a full-funnel strategy to connect with small businesses that grapple with marketing challenges. Aiming to drive purchase intent, Mailchimp designed a whimsical campaign, featuring visuals like dancing rugs, to comically depict the confusion marketers often feel. Knowing that small business owners and decision-makers are at different stages of the funnel, it executed a highly tailored approach.

Brands as Creators
Brands as Creators

Between 2 Rides

eBay Motors, The Many

eBay Motors handed YouTube creators the keys and cocreated a masterfully produced five-part series that pitted modded cars against stock cars, with parts all purchased on eBay. Popular YouTube creator and race-car driver Collete Davis hosted each eight to 12 minute episode, featuring a special guest builder representing a subculture and product category. They paired episode drops with paid YouTube advertising, and the results were remarkable.

The Underdog
The Underdog

3500 Colors

Benjamin Moore, Horizon Media, Craft Worldwide, FIG, Sightly

Benjamin Moore faced a challenge. As businesses reopened and people ventured beyond their homes, home improvement took a back seat. Coupled with the economic headwinds, it was more important than ever for the company to support its local retailers. The brand took an innovative approach. It developed creative showcasing unique end cards for over 1,000 local retailers and paint colors, inspired by each region’s stunning color palettes.

The Shapeshifter
The Shapeshifter

Mixing Things Up

BlendJet, Logical Position

BlendJet needed a campaign that could drive awareness with new customers and transform existing ones into enthusiastic brand advocates. Its strategy? Create compelling content and engage both audiences. BlendJet tapped into big YouTube trends that have stood the test of time. Assets included YouTube fan favorites such as cake or fakes, bewildering viewers with a blender disguised as a cake, and ASMR videos, soothing them with 10 hours of BlendJet assembly.