A YouTube campaign promoting beef’s great taste and thoughtful animal care generated 1,480,876 video views among Arizona consumers this spring and summer. Meanwhile, the campaign’s Google Search Advertising component generated nearly 8,000 clicks at a click-through rate that was much higher than average.
The checkoff-funded campaign was conducted by the Arizona Beef Council through a grant provided by the Iowa Beef Industry Council. ABC worked with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) team to help plan, execute and monitor the digital campaign, allowing it to utilize the full amount of the grant to reach target consumers, rather than paying advertising agency fees. NCBA, a beef checkoff contractor, provides this service free-of-charge to state beef councils.
Not only did the campaign successfully reach numerous Arizona consumers in the targeted 18-44 age range, but it did so at an exceptionally low cost. The YouTube cost per video view (CPV) was $.02, significantly below the industry average of $.04-.05 per view. The video view rate was 42 percent, which was much higher than the industry average of 30-35 percent.
The Google Search campaign Cost per Click was $.40, with a Clickthrough Rate (CTR) of 7.42 percent. The industry average CTR rate for similar ads is 3-4 percent.
“We were thrilled with both the reach and the cost effectiveness of this campaign,” said Mary Jo Rideout, ABC chair. “Beef messages were regularly touching Arizona consumers during this five-month effort.”
The video campaign on YouTube included bumper ads with a “Hungry for Beef” theme that were 6-seconds long and ran uninterrupted. These videos were viewed about 880,000 times at a cost per view of about 4/10ths of a penny each. These short ads help drive brand awareness and extend reach. Longer 15 and 30 second ads with the “Nicely Done” theme were viewed more than 300,000 times.
Ads with a Rethink the Ranch theme had nearly 300,000 views at an average CPV of $.02. The Google Search campaign generated an average search position of 1.9, meaning that on average Arizona campaign ads were showing up in either the first or second spot in Google search results.
“This campaign demonstrates that using YouTube and Google to reach today’s millennial consumer makes sense,” said Janine Moore, Iowa Beef Industry Council Chairmen. “We appreciated the chance to work with the Arizona Beef Council to deliver beef messages to a huge number of consumers in a high population area.”
For more information visit the Arizona Beef Council website at www.arizonabeef.org.
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