The pandemic had a massive impact on mental health around the world as we quickly transitioned into a digital world. In the United States alone, one out of every three people experienced severe loneliness (Src: Loneliness in America). The hardest struck were 18-29 year olds, who were disproportionately affected at a rate of nearly 2 in 3. This is also the core demographic for YouTube viewers, with 95% of them turning to Youtube on a regular basis (Src:Pew Research).

As a result, YouTube creators became a beacon of hope for many viewers and we wanted to applaud top creators’ perseverance and moxie in a way that would be personal, unique and inspirational. It had to be as exceptional as this community of creators. Like them, it had to push the bounds of what’s been done before. And it had to re-energize their creative spirit.

Merging the worlds of technology and artistic expression is something our creators do daily. Could we think of a gift that reflected this skill? Enter NFTs: the hyper-modern art of our era is drawing a lot of attention. But we didn’t want to just send any old NFT and call it a day. It had to be something they could connect with. Something just for them. So, we worked with a collective of global artists to craft a custom piece for EACH of our top creators. We then delivered a digital version they could keep in their crypto wallets, and a gallery-quality, moving, physical version they could proudly display at home.

YouTube creators had a rare opportunity to provide relief to those affected by loneliness during the pandemic. And they did not disappoint. Together they produced over 26B hours of content over the course of the year(Src: Staista). Viewership increased by more than 500%(Src: Youtube) , challenging creators to support larger communities than they ever had before and proving that living in a digital world doesn’t have to be isolating.

We wanted to give creators a gift that 1. Reflected their originality, 2. Could be culturally relevant all over the world, and 3. Could motivate recipients to continue sharing, creating and being there for their audience.

Partner appreciation has become a crowded, competitive space as brands pivoted to focus on remote experiences instead of in-person solutions. Our approach banked on creating something unique and memorable to encourage sharing, help YouTube stand out, and strengthen its relationship with creators.

After engaging five emerging digital artists, we gave them a prompt: how might they visualize the experience of being a creator? While our artists were hard at work creating and designing 12 unique layers to their pieces, we lined up experiential technology gurus to create a custom algorithm that would take each art piece and transform it into 1,250 unique pieces of art, using each creator’s channel name as the source of personalization.

Once each art piece was finalized, we partnered with Infinite Objects to produce physical framed versions for each creator. We then designed a gift box experience that both looked great, and served as a functional and reusable mantle creators could use to display their one-of-a-kind art. On the digital side, a custom transfer site for the fully minted NFTs made sure each work of art went to its one-of-a-kind creator.

In the end, we created more than 1,250 gifts to the top creators on YouTube, which meant shipping packages to 48 countries and translating our materials into 21 different languages.

Additionally this project was completely unpromoted. No requests to creators to share the gifts via their social media pages and no universal hashtag to prompt YouTube, but once packages were received the feedback came pouring in across social channels and the NFTs were a hit!

We ended up with more than 2,000 mentions on social media (623 % year over year increase) with a reach of 3.6 million (459 % year over year increase), hundreds of social posts and unboxing videos shared via YouTube, and a community of creators that felt appreciated and reconnected with not just the YouTube brand, but the larger creator community as well.