YouTube and XX Artists at first set out to achieve a Stay Home awareness campaign in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. YouTube encouraged users and creators to Stay Home #WithMe through campaign videos and social celebrating people’s creative adaptability in adjusting to the unique challenges of life in 2020. With so much incredible content emerging amidst the seemingly never-ending trials of 2020, YouTube and XX Artists worked to craft social programming that showcased how virtual connection and content were truly helping people around the world, all of which underpinned by an existing YouTube trend around #WithMe videos.
As COVID persisted, the campaign adapted to an evergreen At Home #WithMe banner, serving as both a repository for at home content being published on our platform, as well as serving as a call to action of the ways that productivity, creativity and resilience were thriving in the face of unprecedented challenges.
As at home became the norm, YouTube shifted to trend based #WithMe principles including Simplify, Laugh and wellbeing-leaning prompts like Take Care.
YouTube’s ultimate goal for this campaign was to drive awareness for COVID precaution measures, encourage, empower, and appreciate through content that celebrated humility, curiosity, and positivity. The objective was to offer creators and viewers a sense of purpose and agency by uplifting underrepresented voices and celebrating all that humans can do #WithMe.
For the #WithMe social campaign, XX Artists developed engagement-driven programming that laddered to a series of creative public safety messaging (Stay Home and At Home #WithMe) as well as creative resilience themes (Laugh, Take Care, Get By, Simplify, and Learn #WithMe).
These creative resilience editorial themes were based in YouTube content and search trends seen in the face of COVID-19 and were largely rooted in utility, learning and wellbeing.
The campaign identified and amplified a range of small and top creators through social editorial content. The campaign also encouraged creation and conversation around these themes from creators and users alike.
Within its first week, #WithMe delivered a 72.5% net positive sentiment score, with a number of posts landing on World Mental Health Day, driving more mentions than usual.
While all #withme content supported the net positive engagement, two Creators’ #withme content delivered the strongest results.
Amber Scholl’s Simplify #withme thread succeeded in driving empowering, compelling, earned conversations
Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer’s podcast laughing video outperformed all others in terms of engagement, surpassing Q3 benchmarks. Their video drove a significantly large number of relevant, positive quote tweets. Audiences said it was “one of their favorite moments in podcast history” and “cured their depression,” and many also tagged friends about how relatable the video was. This video has the most significant spikes in earned conversation and World Mental Health Day as a whole.
More detailed results included in confidential information.
