YouTube Cannes Lions Ad Leaderboard 2019

With Cannes Lions 2019 on the horizon, YouTube has today released their special edition Cannes YouTube Ads Leaderboard celebrating the most popular global video ads since last year’s festival. The winners leverage some of the most powerful components of best-in-class advertising.

The Cannes Leaderboard manifests a distinct trend we are seeing on YouTube towards long-form content, with winning ads averaging 1 minute and 46 seconds in length. Viewers are choosing to watch beyond the first 5 seconds of the ads, meaning brands need to be deliberate about how the story unfolds to hold attention. The result is a story arc with a more compelling, dynamic hook at the outset; dessert first. Ads continue to unfold with uptempo cadence, unexpected moments, and multiple story peaks to keep viewers engaged. Amazon’s “Not Everything Makes the Cut” is a perfect example. There is a whisper of “a lot of fails” to pique curiosity, followed by multiple celebrity cameos and culminating in a world-wide power outage.

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Roya Zeitoune, YouTube Culture & Trends Lead for EMEA, says: “The Ads Leaderboard winners tap into the things that make for successful ads. Some evoke an emotional response (LG, Nike), others use humour (Amazon, Orange, Apple, Turkish Airlines, Bosch), or celebrities (Shopee, Nike, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Amazon), or a combination of those three elements. These brands tapped into some of the most effective ingredients for ads.”

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These ads represent 388M minutes of watch time and 276M views for the whole leaderboard.

• Global success: The top three spots belongs to ads from Brazil, Egypt and the US, with Vietnam and India following, showing that successful ads are gaining views from all across the globe.
• Celebrity celebration: This year’s list has some star power with Harrison Ford in Amazon’s Alexa hit, LEGO playing it up for Turkish Airlines and K Pop band BLACKPINK rocking the Shopee app.
• They got the feelings: Nike tugs at our heartstrings with emotional stories, while Bosch and Orange make us laugh.
• Techie tech: Apple and Samsung put their products front and center while playing to their audiences needs.

For more on YouTube’s program of activities at Cannes, please visit our dedicated website.

Cannes 2019 YouTube Ads Leaderboard list and global views until June 2019:

Coca Cola: Vai no Gás

Brand: Coca Cola, Brazil

Media Agency: JWT & Kolab/McCann

Creative Agency: JWT

Amazon: Not everything makes the cut

Brand: Amazon

Media Agency: Rufus

Creative agency: Lucky Generals and Amazon Internal Creative Team

Orange: Orange Go

Brand: Orange

Media Agency: N/A

Creative agency: N/A

LG Vietnam

Brand: Vietnam

Media Agency: VietBuzzAd (VBA)

Creative agency: VietBuzzAd (VBA) and HSAd Vietnam

Apple: iPhone XS — Growth Spurt

Brand: Apple

Media Agency: OMD

Creative agency: TBWA\MAL

Shopee: Shopee Birthday Sale Blackpink

Brand: Shopee

Media Agency: In-house

Creative agency: In-house

Turkish Airlines:  LEGO presents the safety video

Brand: Turkish Airlines

Media Agency: People Initiative

Creative agency: Warner Bros

Nike: Crazy Dream

Brand: Nike

Media Agency: SapientRazorfish            

Creative agency: Wieden & Kennedy

Bosch: #LikeABosch

Brand: Bosch Global

Media Agency: OMD

Creative agency: Jung von Matt/Alster 

Galaxy Note9: Fortnite Supply Drop 

Brand: Samsung

Media Agency: Starcom

Creative agency: –

Notes to editors

1. The YouTube Cannes to Cannes Ads Leaderboard is a list of the top 10 most popular video ads globally from Cannes 2018 until June 1st 2019. The ranking is determined using some of YouTube’s strongest signals of viewer choice – including factors like watch time, views, and mix of paid/organic views.

2. Limited to 1 entry per brand to enable brand diversity, and video must still be published on YouTube on date of Leaderboard release.

Cannes YouTube Ads Leaderboard total stats:

• 276 Million views for the whole Leaderboard
• 388 Million minutes watched

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