YouTube crowns Wieden + Kennedy and Mindshare top agencies of 2014
YouTube has named Wieden + Kennedy as the top creative agency of 2014 while Mindshare was named the best media agency of the year.
Wieden + Kennedy - which was also named The Drum's agency of the year - appeared 11 times on last year's YouTube Ads Leaderboard, with its work for Nike, P&G, and Tesco proving most popular.
Closely following Wieden + Kennedy with 10 appearances on the Leaderboard was Adam&EveDDB which racked up views on its John Lewis, and Mulberry ads.
In third place was AMV BBDO with three appearances. Craig Mawdsley, chief strategy officer at the agency said the platform has been crucial in generating audiences for its ads, such as the Sainsbury's Chirstmas advert (below).
“Without YouTube, film-making of this ambition would be very hard to justify, as the cost of reaching enough people for a film that takes over three minutes to tell its story would be too great. But the ‘TV-premiere’ strategy, that creates a tailwind of PR and social mentions, ensuring the film is sought out by viewers has served us very well.”
Meanwhile, Mindshare took the top spot amongst media agencies, followed by Mediacom and Carat.
The positioning was based on an algorithm that factors in paid views, organic views and audience retention,
Graham Bednash, director of consumer marketing at Google, said the most popular ideas are those where brands are thinking like publishers, not advertisers.
“They are mashing together the skills of documentary, music video and advertising to create amazing, shareable content,” he added.
YouTube also released its list of the UK’s ten most watched ads in 2014 which combined earned over 330 million views globally.
The Sainsbury’s Christmas ad topped the charts, racking up more UK views than the John Lewis Christmas advert or two of Nike’s successful world cup adverts.