YouTube Works Awards Honor Excellence in Marketing

HONG KONG SAR –
Media OutReach – 15 November 2023 – YouTube Hong Kong announced yesterday the winners of the third annual YouTube Works Awards, which celebrate and champion the brilliant minds producing the most innovative and effective campaigns on the platform in the past year. HSBC, CASETiFY, Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Ltd, YesStyle.com Ltd and Hong Kong Technology Venture Company Limited took home the top honors across seven awards spanning Best Full Funnel Campaign, Best Collaboration: Brand & Creator, The Changemaker, Best Brand Channel, Best Creative: Shorts, Best Creative: Multi-video Storytelling and Grand Prix.

Michael Yue, General Manager, Sales & Operations, Google Hong Kong (middle) with YouTube Works Award winners and creators

This year’s awards were revamped to more accurately highlight the areas in which a YouTube campaign excels, with newly added categories including Best Brand Channel, which recognizes the brand that best manages YouTube as a platform to regularly engage with audiences, and Best Creative: Shorts, which recognizes the best use of YouTube Shorts incorporated within the overall creative and media strategy to drive effective business results. Both categories reflect recent trends in YouTube viewers’ behavior – with many favoring the platform for its intellectually stimulating content as well as devouring vertical-format Shorts with 30 billion daily views globally – and the creative ways in which brands are responding in kind.

Michael Yue, General Manager, Sales & Operations at Google Hong Kong said, “While there has been a seismic shift in modern video consumption patterns, YouTube remains the top video platform choice for Hong Kong viewers across all ages because it reflects what modern consumers want in all screens, tastes, purposes and contexts. With Google AI, viewers can enjoy a personalized content journey that matches their interests and needs while brands can reach their target audience more efficiently. According to research by Kantar, 80% of YouTube viewers in Hong Kong believe that advertising in videos on the platform plays a crucial role in helping them make purchasing decisions^[1]. Being on YouTube means meeting people where it matters which, as our YouTube Works Awards winners have discovered, translates directly into greater exposure and higher sales.”

Held as an in-person event for the second consecutive year, the YouTube Works Awards 2023 served as an opportunity to celebrate industry excellence and share market insights. The winners were announced in front of an audience of representatives coming from over 50 brands as well as thought leaders and YouTube creators at PMQ where performances by local celebrity singers Hins Cheung and Gin Lee were also featured.

2023 YouTube Works Awards winners in Hong Kong

HSBC

HSBC One Millennials Reth!nk Wealth Campaign

A triple award winner for Best Full Funnel Campaign, Best Creative: Multi-video Storytelling and the Grand Prix that celebrates the campaign that best demonstrates the most effective, creative, innovative and data-driven work with demonstrable business results, HSBC’s unconventional approach to targeting Hong Kong’s millennial market harnessed a diversified mix of long-form and short-form videos as well as new innovations to create an impactful and memorable narrative.

With a key objective being to establish HBSC One as the top-of-mind partner for millennials to help them grow their wealth, the campaign enlisted Dee from idol group ERROR and his doppelganger Aaron Leung from popular TV show
King Maker V to bust six key myths about investing and insurance. The use of Video Reach Campaign (TrueView for Reach + In-Stream Ads + YouTube Shorts) as well as multi-video and sequential storytelling ensured optimal delivery of the hero video while ensuring the key campaign proposition would not be missed. As a result, HSBC achieved stellar results for each of its defined objectives with YouTube driving 2.9 million reach (over 61% of total campaign reach), YouTube Shorts outperforming in terms of cost efficiency and TrueView for Action helping to drive 111,000+ clicks to its website. Besides building 77% awareness among Hong Kong millennials, the campaign led to an acquisition increase of 32% compared to pre-campaign.

Celebrating the bank’s 3rd consecutive Grand Prix Award, Cheuk Shum, Managing Director, Head of Marketing, Wealth and Personal Banking, HSBC Hong Kong, said, “It is our honor to receive this year’s Grand Prix Award for our HSBC One Millennials Reth!nk Wealth Campaign, alongside the Best Full Funnel Campaign and Best Creative: Multi-video Storytelling awards. The campaign, which helps eliminate common investment misconceptions and promotes targeted wealth solutions, attests to our commitment to supporting millennials in their wealth journey. We are pleased to collaborate with YouTube to ‘Reth!nk’ another way to connect with millennials. Backed by YouTube’s audience insights and diversified video solutions, we have been able to bring a new and engaging storytelling experience to viewers, boost awareness, enhance recall and persuasion, and drive follow-through discussions. Ultimately, it has contributed to tangible business results and further strengthened the HSBC brand.”

CASETiFY

Re/CASETiFY

Aiming to showcase its commitment to sustainability, CASETiFY tasked three talented mixed-media artists to create an art piece using Re/CASETiFY materials. The final creative execution of 12 videos and 13 YouTube Shorts documenting the artists’ work and the stories behind them was launched globally with YouTube’s extensive reach and engagement capabilities making it an ideal channel to connect with the sustainability-focused Gen Z target audience.

The campaign leveraged VRC 2.0 with Shorts inventory as well as both long-format and short-format videos, achieving a total reach of 57 million with 2.8 million engagements. It also led to a significant boost in both organic and paid brand search, with a search impression increase of +76% year over year. The impactful results earned CASETiFY this year’s Changemaker award, which is given to the campaign that best demonstrates inclusivity and diversity in marketing, and/or supports social or environmental causes.

Heidi Chan, Senior Growth Marketing Manager, CASETiFY, shared that, “The Re/CASETiFY campaign is a showcase of our commitment to sustainability. We’re dedicated to integrating sustainability into daily decision-making and engineering best-in-class products designed with circularity and style in mind. As creative thought leaders, we convey our message through the power of art, igniting inspiration for lasting change and making valuable contributions to the circular economy. We look forward to further strengthening connections with our global audiences and empowering them through our collaboration with YouTube.”

Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Ltd

The ultimate community-centric investment hub

The Best Brand Channel award highlights the different ways in which brands are using YouTube to connect with their audience on a regular basis, as well as the fact that YouTube viewers come to the platform with the intention to learn. Inaugural winner Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Ltd stood out for its strategic use of YouTube as a content learning hub to engage its target audience. With a mission to drive brand awareness and consideration as well as increase app downloads and conversion of account applications, the company has set out to position its YouTube channel as the go-to learning hub for 35- to 55-year-old Hong Kong investors. Its in-house team delivers fresh organic content every Friday night, featuring non-brand experts and KOLs sharing financial insights and seamlessly integrating product placements in a variety of short and long formats.

Besides building its YouTube channel and content, which consists of over 300 unique advertising creatives, Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Ltd has supplemented its efforts with other YouTube capabilities to drive further engagement. For example, it has leveraged Masthead, Video Reach Campaigns and bumper ads, yielding 67.2 million impressions and 100,000+ clicks, and utilized Video Action, TrueView in-stream/in-feed and non-skippable ads to re-engage its audience with product and offer ads. Overall, the video campaigns have garnered 700 million impressions and driven nearly 2.1 million clicks to the brand’s website and app downloads.

Lo Wai Kit, Marketing Director, Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Limited, said, “Futu, the one-stop investment platform, is delighted to receive the Best Brand Channel award. This recognition underscores our commitment to simplifying investment complexities and promoting financial inclusivity. Our approach, characterized by simplicity and engagement, resonates across all age groups in Hong Kong. We express heartfelt gratitude to YouTube for providing a robust platform, enabling meaningful connections with diverse audiences. This accolade inspires us to deliver concise, valuable content, enriching financial understanding for viewers. Futu remains dedicated to providing expertise and fostering financial literacy, reaffirming our trusted leadership in the world of investments.”

YesStyle.com Ltd

YesStyle x YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts are booming, particularly among younger generations, thereby offering a new and effective way to communicate and engage with customers. E-commerce specialist YesStyle.com Ltd has identified and capitalized on this opportunity as it looks to engage its Gen Z target audience while keeping pace with the incredible speed with which beauty and fashion trends are created and publicized. With the main objective to increase brand awareness, it developed a holistic short-form video strategy focused on consistency, continuity, and diverse and creative content. This included partnering with YouTube to identify hot trends and category insights as well as looking at key metrics to create a coherent and distinct brand image. Most of the videos on YesStyle.com channel have more than 100% average percentage viewed as the viewers watch the video more than once, resulting a high APV of 92.5% in general as well as other successful results, including 125,000+ organic views and an increase of 1,000+ subscribers, thus earning the campaign the first Best Creative: Shorts award.

Erik Hohmann, Vice President of Marketing, YesStyle.com Ltd, shared that, “Our YouTube Shorts aimed to capture the daily small needs of our customers in an engaging, fun and personable manner. Through the partnership with YouTube Shorts, we were able to reach millions of beauty lovers with captivating content, and our resulting success in winning a YouTube Works award demonstrates YesStyle’s effective strategy to become a corporate KOL for Korean beauty, driving awareness and brand recognition.”

Hong Kong Technology Venture Company Limited

Try Once- Try to be a HKTV Mall Wet Market Express Professional

Riding on its newly launched Wet Market Express delivery service, HKTV Mall worked with influential YouTube channel Mill MILK and its signature program – 試一次 （try once）to create a video campaign with a goal to deepen the public understanding of HKTVmall’s “Wet Market Express” service and promote this new service to the public by making the process of handling fresh food in wet markets transparent, thereby showing their priority and concern over food safety to increase public trust towards the service. The winning entry for Best Collaboration: Brand & Creator was able to overcome several challenges, including stiff competition, misconceptions about the brand and service, and a complicated message, to amass over 500,000 views, 6.2 million thumbnail impressions and 7,000+ in user engagement. This represents an increase of at least 170% compared to the channel average. Relevant Google search volume also reached its highest level of the year while orders increased 20% and the number of new customers increased 44%, earning HKTV Mall the Best Collaboration: Brand & Creator award.

Ken Chan, Director of Business Development & Marketing, HKTVmall, said, “We are glad to be recognized by YouTube Works. ‘Wet Market Express’ is an important project for HKTVmall to expand its foothold in quick commerce. The role of ‘Wet Market Buyer’ is a new concept that once sparked discussions online, so we decided to leverage the influential power of YouTube and work with Mill MILK to take the job duty of a ‘Wet Market Buyer’ as the talking point to promote the new service. We are pleased with the collaboration’s success at drawing great awareness and trust for the service, which has also helped us to acquire more potential customers.”

Jason Wong, Business Director, Mill MILK, added, “The key to a successful story for ‘Wet Market Express’ is achieving a perfect match between the topic and the characteristics of Mill MILK creator Natalie, which leads to an enhanced sense of involvement, and more interest in the culture of the wet market and the job.”.

^[1]Source: Google/Kantar, WhyVideo, n=2306 weekly video viewers 18-64 (HK), fielded from (5/2/23-5/20/23). Competitive set includes 10 market competitors: Linear TV, Netflix, Disney+, Viu, MyTV Super, Now TV, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bilibili