To show phone users how much they spend on data, we turned pre-roll ads into price tags. So before a basketball highlights video, for example, we ran a basketball-themed ad showing the real amount of dollars and cents it would cost to stream the video. Same for makeup tutorials, game reviews, movie trailers, gadget-unboxing videos and music videos—well, every YouTube video became an ad for Xfinity Mobile.

To pull it off, we partnered with YouTube, who provided the file sizes for some of its most popular videos and the default resolution for videos on its mobile app. With that data in hand, we calculated the price of each video on the basis of the cost per gigabyte of each of our competitors. And then we showed these prices to our target audience right when they were about to waste money streaming a YouTube video on 4G.

To show phone users how much they spend on data, we turned pre-roll ads into price tags. So before a basketball highlights video, for example, we ran a basketball-themed ad with the amount of real dollars and cents it would cost to stream the video. Same for makeup tutorials, game reviews, movie trailers, gadget-unboxing videos and music videos—well, every YouTube video became an ad for Xfinity Mobile.

To pull it off, we partnered with YouTube, who provided the file sizes for some of its most popular videos and the default resolution for videos on its mobile app. With that data in hand, we calculated the price of each video on the basis the cost per gigabyte of each of our competitors. And then we showed these prices to our target audience right when they were about to waste money streaming a YouTube video on 4G.

Data not only enhanced the creative output; it was actually at its core. Only with the data provided by YouTube were we able to calculate how much it costs to stream each video.

The campaign is still running, but by the time we submitted this entry, YouTube’s most popular videos had made Xfinity Mobile popular too.

- More than 2,000 YouTube videos got price tags.

- With this highly targeted campaign, we reached 4.5 million customers of competitor carriers.

- Online searches for Xfinity Mobile more than tripled (a 221 percent lift).

- Brand interest increased by 113 percent.

“Data in Dollars” used data from YouTube in an innovative way, turning pre-roll ads into price tags that told people how much they were spending to stream YouTube videos on their phones.

YouTube provided the file sizes for some of its most popular videos. With those numbers we calculated the price of each video on the basis the cost per gigabyte of every other carrier. Using YouTube’s Data and Insights, we targeted our ads exclusively at competitors’ customers. In a category marked by competitiveness, we gave other carriers’ customers a solid argument to switch to Xfinity Mobile, thanks to data.

In a category marked by competitiveness, we wanted to give other carriers’ customers a solid reason for switching: how expensive it is to stream a YouTube video. So thanks to data provided by YouTube, we created pre-roll ads that told phone users exactly how much it would cost them to stream the videos they were about to watch. Using YouTube’s targeting tools, we created a campaign aimed specifically at phone users (YouTube allows targeting exclusively to mobile) who were connected to one of our competitors’ carriers (YouTube allows targeting by carrier), by streaming one of YouTube’s most popular videos (YouTube allows targeting by genre). Which was perfect for our concept, allowing us to deliver a message that was tailor-made for each viewer. And by helping our competitors’ customers see for the first time the real price they were paying to stream their videos, we turned YouTube’s most popular videos into compelling ads for Xfinity Mobile.

In the US, phone data is expensive. But with Xfinity Mobile, it isn’t. In fact, Xfinity Mobile is a new carrier that was designed to help phone users save a lot of money on data by connecting to any one of its 18 million WiFi hotspots. Sounds great, huh? But our competitors’ customers didn’t really care enough to switch—until we showed them how much they were spending on data just to watch a YouTube video.