Like many in March 2020, YouTube was dealt a challenge like never before.

In a time when businesses and advertisers were undergoing major pivots, we needed to keep the industry energized about YouTube.

Big tasks call for big tentpoles.

So we turned our focus to NewFront season.

(NewFronts. Like Upfronts. Only digital.)

After 8 years of epic NewFronts, YouTube had earned the reputation for being the world’s best. We dubbed the event ‘Brandcast’ and it has become an imperative tentpole for securing advertising commitments for YouTube.

But in 2020, there could be no big stage, and no in-person presentations or performances.

So with the stakes so high, HOW DOES THE WORLD’S BIGGEST NEWFRONT ADAPT TO A WORK-FROM-HOME WORLD?

We needed to confront the fact that our advertising clients are often not personally familiar with YouTube’s content and Creators. But when they experience it - they get it.

Truth is, YouTube’s extensive video library means every viewer gets a unique, personalized experience. We wanted execs to know that when people look for something personally relevant to them, they turn to YouTube.

So, we connected on a personal level to convince them that YOUTUBE IS FOR EVERYONE (EVEN YOU!).

We side-stepped the dreaded zoom-and-gloom and completely re-invented the decade-old concept of a NewFront...

INTRODUCING ‘BRANDCAST DELIVERED’: THE WORLD’S FIRST EVER PERSONALIZED NEWFRONT.

Creating Brandcast Delivered meant fundamentally changing the way our clients interacted with us during our biggest engagement moment of the year.

Instead of one big show served to thousands, we created something more personal…

3,500 completely customized 22 minute shows; each for an audience of one.

That’s 77,000 minutes of personalized content.

With just 3 months to pull it off.

(And that’s just for the US! Our model was scaled to a dizzying 25 additional countries, each layering their own localized content and Creators.)

This wasn’t just about taking a live event and making it digital.

The entire logistics and experiential nature of the program was flipped. Brandcast Delivered was a personal primetime for every remote attendee based on their individual interests.

And when we say we personalized everything, we mean it. An interactive platform captured attendees’ preferences on which YouTube Creator they wanted as host, which trend they wanted to learn about, and even which music they wanted to hear. Custom technology rendered preferences into unique shows and uploaded them to private websites for each attendee.

We planted personal easter eggs with attendee’s names printed on hosts’s coffee mugs, and splashed across plane banners flying overhead.

Because nothing is ever more personal than pizza toppings, we paired our digital delivery with a physical DIY Pizza Kit, with their favorite toppings in tow. The delivery box arrived at their doorstep and was (you guessed it) personalized!

This was a mass-scale, multi-medium takeover that immersed clients not in a venue hall but within their own living rooms. With Brandcast on their screens, pizza in their oven and wearable lockdown swag, the story of YouTube’s personalization was told at every touchpoint.

This was the Brandcast with your name on it.

The NewFront with your favorite pizza on the side.

The keynote for one, streamed straight to your living-room.

And boy, did it deliver!

Brandcast Delivered was a wild success, engaging +40% clients YOY and ranking as 2020’s #1 Most Impactful NewFront and Upfront overall.

YouTube Advertisers ranked #1 B2B brand on social share of voice with 1.2M+ social impressions and +100% YOY increase in press mentions.

Brandcast Delivered didn’t just create conversation, it converted. Despite pandemic pressure, YouTube reached $5 billion in global ad revenue in Q3!

Best of all, we won over the world’s toughest crowd. Advertiser intent to spend was +9 points and execs across all 26 countries issued raving tweets like “Bravo @YouTube continues to impress, even in quarantine. This marketer is impressed.”

Our transformation was triggered when the need for change was thrust upon us. But we didn’t just simply adapt. We created a whole new way to do a NewFront. By taking over living rooms and personalizing every touchpoint, Brandcast Delivered brought us closer to clients than ever before.

That’s the story of how Brandcast signed, sealed and over-delivered.