YouTube’s New Shorts Branded Content Packages Reveal The Future Of YouTube Influencer Marketing
Source: TikTok
Fresh off revealing that 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users are consuming YouTube Shorts, YouTube is now offering new branded content packages to help brands tap into Shorts content produced by creators.
Short-Form Focused Branded Content Packages
The offerings come through BrandConnect, YouTube's influencer marketing platform, and currently feature a Branded Shorts-only package or a Dynamic Branded YouTube and Shorts package. As it sounds, the former focuses solely on Shorts, and the latter includes Shorts and YouTube's traditional long-form video.
Successful Pilot Campaigns
The launch follows recent successful pilots that YouTube conducted with over 13 brands, including Kellog's MorningStar Farms and TurboTax.
For example, MorningStar Farms launched a campaign to drive recall and purchase intent for its vegan and vegetarian products and partnered with food Shorts creator Lisa Nguyen, who has over 3 million subscribers. Through two sponsored videos featuring its products, Nguyen drove nearly 2 million views, a 153% lift in recall, 5.53 million total minutes of watch time, and a 1,933% overall search lift on Google.
Why It Matters
Why are YouTube's successful pilots and packages noteworthy? They reveal what we should expect to see when it comes to branded content on YouTube going forward. YouTube has long been a space for brands and creators to collaborate on long-form videos. With the emergence of Shorts, brands are now experimenting with short-form video branded content on YouTube - a trend I predicted at the beginning of the year.
With YouTube's established presence for both types of videos and an unlimited number of creators and audiences that cross generations, brands can take advantage of their respective benefits and take a full-integrated approach with their branded content initiatives. By working with creators on Shorts, they can maximize awareness and reach through snackable, culturally relevant content. Working with creators on traditional, video-on-demand allows them to share deeper messaging over a more extended period that can convert viewers into shoppers.
First-Mover Advantage
Right now, branded Shorts content is minimal, so brands still have the opportunity to benefit from a first-mover advantage. Six months from now, it may be a different story, considering the increased interest in Shorts from marketers and creators, the new features that YouTube is building, and a greater emphasis on platform diversification for influencer programs.
How To Get Started
So my advice for brands — get started now. The great thing is that it can be easy to get started. Brands already activating creators on YouTube for long-form content should consider having their creator partners produce sponsored Shorts to go along with their standard deliverables. Brands also can seek out Shorts-first creators as there is a growing pool of new creators strictly building their YouTube presence off of Shorts’ content. Since there aren’t a significant amount of brand deals across Shorts right now, the chances are that rates will be more cost-efficient than long-form video.
Regardless of the approach, brands should let creators own the creative ideation as they will know best what resonates with audiences and how to produce content native to YouTube. Outside of general practices such as trying to capture attention early, featuring one key brand message, and leveraging trends, creators should be able to do what they do best. As seen when TikTok first launched and when brands started to get involved, they did so through creators, and this isn’t anything different.
Lastly, work with creators on multiple activations. Short-form video can be tricky, especially on platforms not named TikTok. By engaging creators to create sponsored videos on several occasions, brands can get a better idea of the feature's value and build out initial performance benchmarks to measure against other similar platforms and channels.
