"The YouTube Film Hack" Unites Creative Agencies

In collaboration with MPC, YouTube have hosted an experimental “Film Hack” to challenge the creative industry to use YouTube as a tool for brand storytelling.

The ambitious project brought together multidisciplinary teams from seven leading creative agencies to utilise their storytelling skills on a real client brief – The Migraine Trust. Interestingly, the teams also partnered with popular YouTube Partners* who shared their expertise in developing original content for the platform and insight into reaching the YouTube audience.

The agency teams had one week to come up with their creative idea and a day to film it in the YouTube Creator Space, a top facility usually reserved for YouTube Partners. MPC Creative acted as production consultant throughout the project. Agencies who got involved:

Saatchi & Saatchi
JWT
Dare
M&C Saatchi
RKCR/Y&R 
Leo Burnett
Karmarama

The output was twofold: a piece of content appraised on how it employed the YouTube platform (how interactive and responsive it was) plus a live YouTube “Skippable” ad that compelled the viewer to view through to the end.

Charlotte Morton of YouTube’s Creative Agency team said, “YouTube is a great place for brands to share their stories with a huge and engaged audience. The unique traits of the platform - responsiveness, interactivity and authenticity - mean brands can weave richer narratives than ever.  This event was designed to give some of the best Creative minds in the industry a chance to explore the unique storytelling potential of the platform and think about what new skills are required to make those stories stick.”

Ben Cyzer, MPC's Head of Creative Strategy said, “Our goal within our MPC Creative division is to develop new and innovative ways to deliver messages for our clients. The YouTube Film Hack is an exciting project for us to be involved in because as an industry we all need to become more nimble, resourceful and contemporary in our creative approach. YouTube is the ultimate barometer of successful content so there's a lot to be learnt from this exercise”.

After intense judging by Alex Jenkins from Contagious, David Alberts of Mofilm and Charles Bosher at The Migraine Trust, Saatchi & Saatchi’s innovative film was declared the winner.

Watch the winning film: Saatchi & Saatchi

And the judge’s views: Winning Film

See how it all came together: Sizzle Reel

Watch all the entries: Migraine Trust