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Google.com/Insights: Your New Home for Google’s Insights Tools

Monday, July 20, 2015 | 12:00 PM

Today, our lives are lived in moments. We share vacation photos with family and check in on what our friends are up to. There are also other types of moments: the I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, and I-want-to-buy moments. These moments, when we act on a specific intent and expect an immediate answer, happen all the time and all along the consumer decision journey. And they’re increasingly happening on digital platforms.
As we are now able to immediately act on our impulses to answer a question, learn a skill or find the best product for us, the link between our action and our intent has never been closer. The challenge for marketers is to quickly aggregate all of the intent behind these moments into something meaningful, some sense of understanding what consumers truly desire.
Enter Google. Google has the innovative technologies to turn this massive data set into data that can help people create new services and solve big problems.


Even with the biggest of data sets, it’s hard to engineer an insight.  Google provides the factbase of category, consumer, brand, and content data from which just about anyone can find something interesting. But in the hands of experts – the brand managers, planners and creatives of the world – your expertise can turn our findings into true insights. When we can put our data and our tools into your hands, truly groundbreaking work is possible.
Google.com/Insights: A centralized location for Google’s insights tools
To help you better harness the power of our data, we have redesigned Google.com/insights as a central starting point for the insights discovery process.  Here, you can understand how our solutions help you to understand the intent behind the moments that matter:    
  • Google Consumer Surveys: make confident business decisions with fast, accurate, and insightful market research
  • Google Trends: Anticipate industry trends before they happen, with real-time insights into search behavior
  • Google Correlate: See how seasonality, location, and world events affect search behavior relevant to your industry
In addition, you will find links to compelling, research-driven insights we have published so far, as well as examples on how other brands have partnered with Google and used our data and tools to successfully drive their businesses forward.

Companies of all sizes and across all industries rely on our data and tools to discover how to find solutions to problems and understand what moves consumers.  Today and tomorrow, Google will be there to partner with marketers to help solve their most challenging questions.

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Top 100 Brands Report: Insight into Brand Content on YouTube

Sunday, July 19, 2015 | 5:00 PM

YouTube recently celebrated its 10th birthday, and with this milestone in mind we reflected on how YouTube has become a daily part of the lives of millions of people. Communities, both small and large, explore their passions on YouTube. Car buyers check out potential purchases with in-action auto videos, gamers discover the latest games through a deep library of trailers, and new moms gain insights around parenting from both brands and mommy vloggers. 

Ten years in, YouTube is a daily go-to destination for people who seek to connect with others around their passions and interests. In a recent survey of 18-34 year old millennials, YouTube was most chosen out of their top 3 favorite video destinations to watch online videos.1 Statistics like this show why YouTube is growing faster than it has in years—watch time is up 60% across devices, and 100% on mobile year over year.2

Viewers are also coming to YouTube specifically to watch content from brands. In fact, four of the top 10 trending videos on all of YouTube in 2014 were created by brands.3 We recently partnered with Pixability to analyze viewership and publishing trends from the Top 100 Brands as defined by the Interbrand 2014 Best Global Brands ranking. 

Viewership of brand content is growing
Brands are seeing an explosion of engagement and views on YouTube. Views of branded content of the top 100 brands have nearly doubled in the last 12 months: consumers have watched their videos more than 40B times in total,4 with over 18B of those views taking place in the last year.5 And brands are building sustained relationships with their viewers on YouTube: brand channel subscriptions are up 47% year over year.6  Brands like Toyota have experienced this engagement growth firsthand:   

“The benefit of a diverse platform like YouTube is they have an unparalleled ability to reach a variety of demographics,” says Dionne Colvin-Lovely, Director, Traditional & New Media, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. “That aligns very well with Toyota’s diverse consumer and product lineup. YouTube allows our brand’s message to break through in an impactful way, and it offers great metrics to see if the content is resonating with the intended audience.”

Brands are becoming more active on YouTube
Brands are now adopting similar content strategies as some of our most successful creators on YouTube. They’re actively managing their YouTube channels, and publishing new content on a regular basis to engage viewers and keep them coming back. According to Pixability, the Interbrand Top 100 brands are collectively uploading a video to YouTube every 18.5 minutes.7 Also a fun fact: Thursday is the most popular day for uploads.8 

In terms of content, 10% of brand videos posted to YouTube in the last year are over 10 minutes long.9 This indicates that brands are creating made-for-YouTube content, which tends to perform better than repurposed material. Brands are realizing if they have an authentic voice, they can engage people familiar with their brand and also attract new customers. Coca-Cola is also using YouTube as a platform on which to build relationships and engage consumers with unique, relevant content:

“We love the opportunity YouTube gives Coca-Cola to interact, build relationships and share stories that are authentic and relevant to the brand,” said Chris Bigda, Director, Connections Planning & Investment, Coca-Cola North America. “We are seeing continued success on the platform, uploading higher quality content and achieving better results for it. We are really proud to be part of the YouTube community and excited by the partnership.”

Screen Shot 2015-07-17 at 11.41.28 AM.png

Wayfair, for example, is using YouTube to experiment with new content and reach untapped demographics:

“YouTube has become an incredibly valuable marketing tool for Wayfair by providing us with a platform to deliver new and authentic content to our customers. It's exciting to see that we're also reaching new audiences for our portfolio of brands,” said Ben Young, Media Manager- Wayfair TV and Video. “Despite our success to date, it feels like we’ve only just scratched the surface with the YouTube platform.” 

Brands are investing more on YouTube
In addition to brands creating more content for YouTube, we’re also seeing that brands are investing more in video ads to promote this content. The average spend of the top 100 video advertisers, as defined by media spend, is up 60%,10 and the number of advertisers investing in video ads is up 40% year over year.11  By investing in YouTube, these advertisers aren’t just building their brand, they’re also contributing to the YouTube ecosystem.

These first 10 years are just the beginning—we’re looking forward to seeing how brands will continue to evolve and innovate on YouTube over the next 10.

Posted by Cenk Bulbul, Head of Strategy and Insights, YouTube Ads Marketing

Sources
1. BAVC Consulting & YouTube Marketing, Custom Survey Study Millennials (150 18-34 year olds), US data July 2015
2. YouTube Global Data, Q2 2015 compared to Q2 2014
3. YouTube Trends Data, 2014
4. Top 100 Brands Pixability research, all time global data (2005-2015)
5. Top 100 Brands Pixability research, June 2014 to June 2015
6. Top 100 Brands Pixability research, Jan to June 2014 and Jan to June 2015
7. Top 100 Brands Pixability research, Jan to June 2015
8. Top 100 Brands Pixability research, all time global data (2005-2015)
9. Top 100 Brands Pixability research, global data June 2014 to June 2015
10. Google Global Data, April to June 2014 and April to June 2015, Top 100 advertisers list determined by media spend.
11. Google Global Data, April to June 2014 and April to June 2015

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Making it easier to deliver compelling experiences across screens

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 | 2:54 PM

Making it easier to deliver compelling experiences across screens
We’ve explained how Programmatic Guaranteed in DoubleClick Bid Manager and Native Ads in DoubleClick for Publishers help ensure your brand shows up in the right place and context. But once you’re present, you have to show a relevant, engaging message to each viewer. Today, we’re excited to launch three new mobile video formats for DoubleClick and a new Creative Preview App, to make it easier to deliver compelling experiences across screens.
Bring interactive video to mobile devices: Video Cue Points component in Google Web Designer
The Video Cue Points component, now available for download, allows developers to build an interactive video ad that looks and feels like VPAID, except that the video runs directly within the display ad on mobile devices. Interactive HTML5 banners with video might take 2-3 weeks of developer time to hand code, but with Google Web Designer and our Video Cue Points component, it can take as little as 3-4 hours.

“Teaser Reels” mobile video component in DoubleClick Studio
With Teaser Reels, you can easily create an HTML5 display ad with an autoplay video teaser. Imagine an interstitial between game levels or directly within mobile web content - a user sees the teaser video automatically and then can click to play the entire video on their device. This will be launching in mid-July, so check back on our help center for more details. (Studio login required)
New mobile in-app templates in Google Web Designer
Our mobile starter templates make it easy to create rich in-app experiences, such as this expandable HTML5 video unit, built by the creative agency Think Jam to promote the release of Warner Brother’s Hobbit film. Learn more about Google Web Designer templates here.

The new Creative Preview App
Once you've built ads specifically designed for mobile, you'll want to preview them across device types to ensure the user experience is positive in every environment and size. We’ve launched the Creative Preview App, now available for Google Play and coming soon to iOS, which allows you to push mobile ads from DoubleClick Studio directly to your mobile device. Now you can preview and test mobile ads in an actual mobile environment. You can also test the exits in your ads to see reporting metrics come through in the DoubleClick Studio output console on your desktop.
We’re working to make the process of building rich, engaging ads for every environment more seamless for brands and agencies, from creative authoring through to delivering the right ad to the right customer at the right time.

Posted by Karin Hennessy, Product Manager, DoubleClick Creative Solutions

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Creative Inspiration, Just In Time For Cannes Lions

Wednesday, June 24, 2015 | 9:18 AM

At Cannes Lions this week, thousands of creatives are gathering to discuss innovative storytelling, ad technology, and the future of the marketing industry. Whether you’re there or just following along from home (#CannesLions), the latest pieces on Think with Google can get your creative juices flowing.

Here’s the big question we’ve been trying to answer for creative marketers: In the age of the skip button, how can we make ads unskippable? On YouTube, advertisers need to grab a viewer’s attention instantly—and then hold it after the first five seconds. With our new research, we tried to find out just how to do that. While there is no exact formula, we found that science could tell us quite a bit about engaging video advertising.

For our Unskippable Labs experiment, we tested 3 cuts of the same ad to see which version got the best reaction on smartphones. This experiment helped us uncover some key insights about what creative works on mobile. One particularly interesting learning: shorter doesn’t necessarily mean better. The longest ad in our study (93 seconds) received the highest view-through rate.



For a more macro approach, our latest YouTube Insights piece looked at thousands of ads across 16 countries and 11 verticals, to try and find out what creative elements are associated with how long viewers watch (and how much they remember). The little things—like where you put your brand logo, and what tone you take in the first 5 seconds—can go a long way in helping viewership, brand awareness, and ad recall.

Looking for some examples of attention-grabbing ads? The Cannes to Cannes YouTube Ads Leaderboard recaps the top 10 videos since last year’s festival! And for even more big ideas and creative inspiration, be sure to check out our brand new Creative hub on Think with Google.

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Micro-moments: The new battleground for brands

Thursday, June 4, 2015 | 5:00 AM

Mobile has forever changed the way we live. When we want to know something, go somewhere, do something, or buy something, we turn to our smartphones.













For consumers, these on-the-go searches are commonplace. For marketers, they’re a new battleground for people’s hearts, minds, and dollars. These real-time, intent-driven moments of need—micro-moments—present critical opportunities for brands to shape decisions and preferences.

 Our latest research reveals just how important these moments can be: 82% of smartphone users turn to their phone to influence a purchase decision while in a store. And 91% use their phones for ideas while doing a given task, searching for how-to videos and other ways to learn.

 On Think with Google, explore our entire collection of micro-moments research to learn more about this fundamental shift. And there’s more than just data. We talked to real people with real stories about how they used the web in a spontaneous moment of need. Use these statistics and stories to inform your marketing strategy and to ensure you’re connecting with consumers in the moments that matter.

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Happy Birthday Brand Lift - We Got You Some New Features

| 5:00 AM

Today’s consumer journey has become fragmented into micro-moments that span many channels, devices and media types.  As a brand trying to reach today’s consumer, it’s more important than ever that you know which moments matter most.  And, because consumers are making decisions faster than ever, you need to be able to make decisions equally as fast.
The good news is that while technology makes the consumer journey more fragmented, it also makes it easier to measure brand impact. At Google, it’s our mission to help you measure all of the moments that matter -- from first impression to final conversion.
That’s why last year we launched our Brand Lift solution, giving you insights into what impact your YouTube ads have on the consumer journey - from awareness, to ad recall, to brand interest - in a matter of days, not weeks or months.
So how is our one-year-old doing?  In the first year, we’ve run more than 10,000 studies on YouTube campaigns.  In April, we published an analysis showing the results Brand Lift has measured on YouTube, and found that 94% of campaigns saw a lift in ad recall, with an average lift of 80%.  Not bad for a toddler!
Today, we are excited to announce that we’re expanding Brand Lift to include measuring lift in consideration, favorability and purchase intent for your ads. Our survey methodology will quickly tell you how your YouTube ad resonates at different points in the consumer journey:
  • Did my ad break through with consumers?
  • Are they more aware of my brand after seeing my ad?
  • Is their consideration of my brand higher after my campaign?
  • Are consumers more favorable towards my brand after seeing my ad?
  • Has their intent to purchase from my brand risen?
And because more than half of YouTube traffic occurs on mobile devices, we’ve expanded Brand Lift to measure the impact of ads served on YouTube’s mobile app as well.  
With these additions, you can measure more of the moments in that make up today’s consumer journey, giving you a more complete view of how your YouTube campaigns drive impact.
Happy birthday Brand Lift!  Hope you like the new features we got you.
Posted by Samir Pradhan, Product Manager, Brand Lift

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We asked, you voted: Your favorite YouTube ad of the past decade

Tuesday, June 2, 2015 | 9:01 PM

The wait is over. The moment has arrived. We’re about to unveil your favorite ads from the last decade on YouTube. But first, we want to thank you. From ad makers to fans, you came out in droves to vote (and tweet) for your favorite ads and help us, in partnership with the Webby Awards, recognize 10 years of great branded videos on YouTube. So in celebration of YouTube’s 10th birthday, we’re pleased to share the results:

Congratulations to Turkish Airlines and the teams at Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Starcom for making your favorite YouTube ad of the past decade: Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout.



Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout, the follow-up to their 2012 Legends on Board spot, was an instant hit on YouTube. In fact, the video, which pits two of the world's biggest sports superstars against each other in a game of selfie-shooting one-upmanship, skyrocketed to 25M views in the first three days! Cleverly combining the world's newfound 'selfie' obsession with the star-power of Kobe Bryant and Messi, the ad found it's way to the top of both the December 2013 and Cannes Special Edition YouTube Ads Leaderboards.

Rounding out the top five vote-getters:

In second place: Volkswagen's 2011 Big Game spot, The Force (Deutsch Los Angeles, MediaCom), delighted viewers with a little boy dressed as Darth Vader, attracting over 8 million views before anyone saw it on TV.



In third place: Always #LikeAGirl (Leo Burnett, Starcom MediaVest Group) challenged and shattered negative perceptions of what it means to do something "like a girl."



In fourth place: Volvo Trucks' The Epic Split feat. Van Damme (Forsman & Bodenfors) took live truck testing to an epic new level.



In fifth place: Dove Real Beauty Sketches | You're more beautiful than you think (Ogilvy Brazil, PHD, Mindshare), a social experiment showing women that when it comes to their beauty, sometimes they can be their own worst critics.



Combined, these five videos have been watched for over 7.7 million hours1. That's over 875 years people chose to spend watching ads! Congrats to all of the winners and nominees and thanks again to all who voted.

 We often get asked: what's the secret to success like this on YouTube? So we took a look at the 20 nominees—20 examples of iconic, breakthrough digital marketing—to see what stood out. From authenticity to interactivity to memes, we identified 10 trends to cap off YouTube's 10th birthday month: A Decade of YouTube Ads: The Top Ads and the Trends That Define Them.

And if you're really feeling brave, find out how well you know YouTube with our 10th birthday trivia game at youtube.com/10.

#10YearsofYouTubeAds

 1 Google Internal Data

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