Early 2020, and the world was entering lockdown. During a time of great fear and uncertainty, YouTube saw the opportunity to launch a brand project at the core of its mission: to give everyone a voice, and show them the world.

By using its uniquely diverse reach to bring people together, it hoped to facilitate an act of optimistic co-creation, and produce a film that helped make sense of the world at a difficult time.

The objectives were three-fold: firstly, to capture the imagination of potential contributors, and drive participation that far exceeded the original film in scale, breadth and global reach.

Secondly, to use radically disparate footage to create a single, coherent work that resonated.

Finally, to engage audiences at scale. To move and inspire, and gain the gratitude of users through a project that only YouTube could have made.

Life in a Day begins with a simple invitation, with infinite potential outcomes: pick up your camera and film your day.

On July 25th 2020 (exactly ten years after the original), we asked people around the globe to capture what the world looked like to them. To share what they loved, what they feared, what they’d like to change.

From thousands of contributions, we’d craft a feature-length documentary film; one that didn’t merely replicate the original, but looked at the world anew. It would of course cover the key global themes of the year, but the ambition of the idea was to offer a strikingly different perspective on the world. Going beyond footage from news crews embedded in hospitals, or the constant barrage of case numbers, we’d create a deeply personal reflection on life in 2020 that captured our shared humanity at a time the world needed it most.

The essence of the creative strategy is that, by documenting the "ordinariness" of a single day, we hope to tell a bigger story; one that can capture a specific year, or even the human experience itself.

By using YouTube in this way, we aimed to transcend “branded content”, and put the platform's mission at the heart of the creation, execution and distribution of the content. In what has become a crowded social media sphere, Life in a Day should remain a project that only YouTube could facilitate: evident through its geographic scale, the creativity of its contributors, and its emotional weight.

Looking to create a film that felt even deeper in theme and more representative than the original, the callout campaign targeted uploads from a broad international spread of countries. It encouraged contributors to capture the personal, showing the “big themes” of the year through intimate experience and reflection.

Two weeks before Filming Day, a callout was launched in 25 languages. Five pieces of video content were sequenced on the LIAD channel to build awareness, inspire, and drive action, with cutdowns running as pre-rolls. A PR campaign ran alongside.

Edited over four months, the documentary charts both one day and the milestones of life: birth, love, aging, death. We meet characters that embody our era through their intimate footage: a black woman whose brothers were killed in police custody; a man made homeless by the pandemic; a refugee family preparing for a birthday party. Their stories contribute to a tapestry of life in a film that is heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful.

Premiering at Sundance in January, an integration with the Super Bowl pre-game show followed, with the trailer aired before kickoff. A launch campaign delivered through TVCs, pre-rolls, PR and social drove viewers to the documentary on YouTube.

The project earned huge reach and engagement, with content, trailers and the film viewed 116m+ times. The channel gained 435k subscribers.

The callout resulted in 325k submissions (compared with 80k in 2010) in 192 countries; the most successful callout of its kind ever.

The film became the 5th most watched feature-length documentary on YouTube.

The Washington Post called it “poetic and at times transcendent… a gem of a film”, the Chicago Sun-Times said it was “an affirmation of life” and BBC radio considered it “essential viewing”. There was over 530 pieces of coverage worldwide.

At a time when brand marketing from tech companies can be met with scepticism, the film received 85% positive response, with comments reflecting its impact on viewers. “I never knew a YouTube video could be this humbling” said one, and another: “You allowed me to cry for the first time in a long time. Thank you.”