YouTube ads that kept users away from the 'Skip Button'

One stop destination for all our video consumption, YouTube has been solely catering to all our video desires. But as they say, all good things come with a price and those five seconds before the ‘Skip Ad’ option feels like one of the biggest price we have to pay to view our desired videos. Though some videos have managed to resist our urge to click the skip button, becoming the most watched ads in the first six months of 2016.

The video streaming website released Leaderboard of commercials and promoted videos that got maximum views and resonated with the Indian audience. They curated a list of most engaging ads that people chose to watch; YouTube claimed that the ten ads clocked 4 lakh hours of watchtime with more than 60% viewed on mobile devices.

The leaderboard includes a total of top 10 Indian ads on YouTube during January-June this year. “Ads are determined by an algorithm that factors in paid views, organic views and audience retention (how much of a video people watched),” Google said in a statement.

The top YouTube ads came from a variety of industries and companies including Bajaj, E-commerce brand Amazon, ticket booking portal MakeMyTrip, television channel Star Sports, beverage brands Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Fan Anthem, #PlayBold India starring Virat Kohli and Mahindra Singh Dhoni, #NothingDirty the Hitachi anthem rapped by Baadshah, Ariel #ShareTheLoad, and Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge – Samsung

Testament to this is that two of the ads on the YouTube Leaderboard have been recognised at Cannes this year. These are the Bajaj V film which fetched their creative agency, Leo Burnett a Bronze Lion in the Promo & Activation category under Cars & Automotive Product & Services category, and the Ariel ad for which BBDO India was awarded a Bronze Lion in the Creative Effectiveness category.

Talking about the campaign, Soumya Das, DGM (Marketing), Bajaj Auto said, “The genesis of Bajaj V came from our passion to keep alive the legacy of the invincible INS Vikrant in the form of a bike that lakhs of Indians can ride with pride. We're extremely happy to know that the entire nation appreciates what we did. Youtube as a platform, with its targeting capabilities has helped us to connect with our TG more efficiently and made this campaign a bigger success.”

Stay tuned in to find out which ads make the cut in the next quarter.