YouTube Ads Leaderboard

Kuala Lumpur (19 June 2014) – Today Google released its YouTube Ads leaderboard for the months of April – June for Malaysia. This list represents the 10 ads on YouTube that resonated most with audiences across the country over the past three months. This Leaderboard celebrates the brands that performed best in Malaysia, through a combination of popularity (organic views) and promotion (paid views).

Here are some trends:

Football fever:
With all the excitement surrounding the World Cup over the past few months, it’s no surprise that two out of the ten ads — and the number one video in terms of popularity — explicitly feature the beautiful game. These two football themed ads are from Nike (#1 and #7 on the leaderboard), and what they both do really well is tell a great, emotional story — they speak more to the passion that viewers feel for football than about their product. In “Winner Stays” we have a true game of ‘fantasy football’ where an ordinary game in the park is shot through with magic as international stars take over.

Beyond the 30 second spot: made for digital makes the grade
The current Leaderboard is dominated by ads that were born digital, with formats created specifically with YouTube’s audience in mind. If we look at the length of the videos: 8 out of the 10 are well beyond 30 seconds, and “Samsung GALAXY S5” (#8) is just under a whopping 8 minutes. This shows that viewers on YouTube will watch longer videos from brands as long as there’s a strong story – as in “Liquid & Metal” (#5) where we see Lewis Hamilton tear across the countryside – or an intriguing idea, like “First Kiss” (#2), where the brand arranged for strangers to pucker up on camera.

Beyond borders: made-for-web content
Whilst Malaysian ads like “DG Smartplan” (#6) and “HAVOC” (#10) have made the top ten, 7 out of 10 of the videos come from global brands. This shows that online, geographical borders are fluid and Malaysian advertisers are actually vying not just with local players, but with the rest of the world to get their message across. That means advertisers need to do something dramatic to capture the audience’s attention. DG Smartplan’s cheeky cat video parody is a good example of a scrappy approach to online video.