As the UK looked to the end of lockdown in Spring 2021, people between the ages of 16-34 were set to emerge from lockdown unvaccinated and returning to elements of “normal life” before they had access to the vaccine.

With little to no threat to their own health and the majority of the vulnerable already vaccinated, the concern was that the perceived urgency and need for the vaccine would be undermined.

The NHS came to YouTube with a specific ask - to help reach young people to keep vaccination relevant and uptake high. With 98% of 18-34 year olds in the UK using YouTube each month, YouTube had an important role to play to help the NHS reach this critical audience with the message that our fight against COVID-19 is not done, and that their vaccination is a key step on our path back to normality.

In Spring 2021, after over a year of lockdowns, the NHS was working on an accelerated vaccination timeline with a goal to vaccinate all over 50s by April.

At the same time, the government had released the lockdown exit plan starting on 8 March with the reopening of schools and recreation in outdoor spaces and continuing through April with major parts of the economy permitted to reopen on 12 April.

The majority of young people were emerging from lockdown unvaccinated and eager for life to return to “normal”. With 98% of 18-34 year olds in the UK using YouTube each month, YouTube was well positioned to help the NHS reach this critical audience with the message that our fight against COVID-19 is not done, and that their vaccination is a key step on our path back to normality.

As life seemingly returns to normal we need to remind young people of the importance of being vaccinated through messaging that speaks to their personal experiences from a year of lockdown and their ambitions for a post-lockdown reality.

The creative concept was called “Let’s not go back”. The idea used UGC to show the grim reality of lockdown as a way to motivate people not to go back. From virtual discos, backyard festivals and paddling pool triathlons to canceled football, home workouts and online shopping; the campaign taps into real emotion through culturally relatable scenarios. The creative features a range of YouTube creators (with a combined subscribership of 10.5M) including Saffron Barker, Robbie Lyle (AFTV), MattDoesFitness, Scola Dondo, Roxxsaurus.

The target audience was YouTube users aged 18-34. While moral obligation was amongst the top drivers for vaccination for this audience, social conversation indicated that there was fatigue with this narrative. After more than one year of continual lockdowns, we knew that young people were ready to get back to the things they loved. However, there was a deep-seated fear of going back into lockdown.

We tapped into this insight in a playful way by highlighting the unique ways that people adapted during lockdown using content from YouTube. This served as an entertaining reminder that vaccination was key so that we don’t go back. We featured YouTube creators who are loved and trusted by the audience.

Lastly, we knew that concerns around vaccine safety were also a factor so education was important. We worked with the NHS and the Vaccine Confidence Project to surface educational content on the YouTube platform.

To drive awareness of our message, we launched an 8 week campaign coinciding with the easing of restrictions in the UK. The media plan had a projected reach of ~42M across channels including ~800 OOH placements across the UK, ~50 print placements, YouTube TrueView, YouTube owned & operated and Paid Social.

To aid education, we facilitated collaborations between YouTube creators and the NHS - including Leena Norms, Robbie Lyle from AFTV and Word on The Curb. These collaborations generated 1M+ views and were featured on the YouTube Get the Facts playlist alongside other educational content. The playlist drove 320M impressions with 1.21M clicks, helping the NHS reach audiences and deliver messages that they typically would not be able to via their own channels.

To inspire action, the campaign drove users to the Covid-19 FAQ page at nhs.uk/CovidVaccine which had a link for booking their vaccine.

The campaign reached 82.8% of 18-34 year olds online, reaching a total audience size of 16.5M, delivering over 300M impressions & driving a statistically significant lift of 3.6% in awareness of YouTube’s partnership with the NHS. More results below:

- Online the campaign reached 82.8% of the target audience online, delivering 300M impressions.

- Day 1 of the campaign has resulted in 393 coverage hits across broadcast, print and online. Key coverage included broadcast features on Sky News, BBC News and Radio 4's Today Programme & The Independent.

- Our OOH delivered 44M impacts and using ADA optimisations we delivered 55.2% on-target audience impressions (vs avg campaign benchmark of 28.1%).

- We appeared in 15 print titles, with 62 insertions including Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Economist, and more.

- Our Get the Facts Playlist on YouTube delivered 320m impressions with 1.21m clicks, CTR 0.35%.