Dive Brief:
- Coca-Cola is discontinuing its weekly YouTube series in the United Kingdom after less than a year, according to a Campaign article. The move follows a similar one by McDonald’s to abandon regular YouTube programming on a branded channel.
- Over the course of its short tenure on YouTube, Coca-Cola’s Coke TV produced 48 mostly six- to eight-minute episodes starring the adventuresome duo Manny and Dodie. The episodes averaged 200,000 views. The content, which covered recording a music video, go-kart racing and canoeing, was aimed at audiences in their late teens to 20s.
- Coca-Cola’s U.K. marketing director Aedamar Howlett explained to Campaign that the beverage brand “decided to evolve Coke TV with a new digital content strategy” to stay connected to Generation Z consumers. The new digital content strategy will be unveiled later this year. Campaign also reported McDonald’s said it would still put out content intended for young viewers, but on an ad hoc rather than methodically scheduled basis.
Dive Insight:
While a number of brands are pulling ads from YouTube because some of their messaging has appeared next to incendiary content, the Coca-Cola news appears to be more about evolving content strategies as marketers continue to try to figure how best to reach younger consumers on digital platforms.
Marketers are keen to make their imprints on YouTube, where the size and characteristics of the viewership are compelling propositions. The Google-owned video platform has over a billion users and is the second largest search engine in the world. YouTube reports in excess of half of its views come from mobile and, on mobile devices, it reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds than any TV network.
Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Taco Bell are among the companies that have tried weekly YouTube programming to lure viewers. The original content spreads the companies’ storytelling wings beyond traditional advertising to engage consumers with brands in often unexpected ways. However, Coca-Cola’s and McDonald’s decisions to end weekly episodes suggest making a commitment to churning out regular programming is difficult and perhaps not producing results to make it worthwhile.
Not all brands are ditching the YouTube series format. KFC has been effusive about the engagement it’s achieved with a 12-episode series called “KFC Presents: Around the world in 99 Gigs” hosted by the social-media influencers Callux and Charlotte de Carle. The episodes garnered a total of around 6 million views and a second season is in the works. Hasbro recently premiered an animated series titled “Hanazuki: Full of Treasures” on YouTube to tease a line of toys it’s introducing in the summer.
In general, though, branded channels don’t seem to match influencers’ power on YouTube. In an L2 study of beauty content on YouTube explored by Women’s Wear Daily, it was found vloggers outperform beauty brands in beauty category searches on the video platform by 14 to 1. Those sorts of findings underpin why brands are increasingly depending on influencer marketing to reel in young audiences. A survey conducted by Bloglovin’ discovered 32% of marketing professionals believe influencer campaigners are critical to their marketing strategies, and 63% are boosting their influencer marketing budgets this year.