Tyler Oakley

It's hard to be weird. 

But Tyler Oakley has become one of the world's top YouTube creators by daring to be himself, and inspiring others to do the same.

Fan-Generated Ads

We had Tyler ask his community of over 7M fans to share videos about what makes them strange and unique, using the hashtag #DareToBeYou. 

Thousands of brave fans shared their most intimate moments, which became part of Tyler's national TV campaign.

To thank his fans for participating, Tyler posted a longer video on his channel.

It gets pretty emotional.

Dare Tyler

We had fans write dares for Tyler, then filmed him answering them for this interactive ad. Each time you spin the wheel, Tyler does a different dare. (Don't do it though, this is just a GIF).

And of course, we put Tyler's face all over town.

Lilly Singh

Lilly Singh is an Indian-Canadian comedian who plays multiple characters: herself, her overbearing mom, her showboating dad, and her self-obsessed friends.

Her 6 million fans love her because she shows the weirdness of everyday family life (especially Indian families).

Around the same time as the campaign, Lilly won a streamy award. In her acceptance speech, she thanked YouTube for "not being afraid to put a brown girl on a billboard."

"Inception" Masthead

On the YouTube homepage, we introduced the world to Lilly. And Lilly. And Lilly.

To see it in context, click here.

Pre-roll Videos

We made a ton of these short introductions to Lilly and peppered them throughout YouTube. Some were general, and some were specific to the type of video you were about to watch. 

Out of Home

We put her face everywhere. 

Created with Tiago Veiga, Paul Fix, Jamie Overkamp, and Lilly Singh.

Grace Helbig

Grace Helbig is a comedian who has mastered the art of awkwardness. 

Our challenge was to show the world why 2.7 million fans love her... without making it seem like just another blonde girl on a billboard.

Basically, Grace helped us make fun of our own campaign.

Visual Style

We spent a lot of time making Grace look really weird. 

And she messed around with our other, more "normal" beacons.

Digital

Our digital ads featured Grace giving you "options." This series was one of the best performing mastheads YouTube has ever done. 

TrueViews

TrueViews are those short ads that play before YouTube videos. Grace finds them annoying.

Digital Outdoor

Grace is so sorry.

Socially-Powered Mural

We needed a way to let Grace's fans mess with the campaign a little. So we created a painted wall that her fans could affect via Twitter. Grace tweeted a series of choices, and the fans picked what was painted next.

Here's a full case-study video of the campaign featuring Grace, Hannah Hart, & Dude Perfect.

Hannah Hart

You might know Hannah Hart from the viral hit series "My Drunk Kitchen."

She's a great example of a weird, creative person who took a one-off video success and, with the help of her fans, grew it into a massive multimedia network.

We tried to capture Hannah's spirit of relentless optimism, even though legal wouldn't let us show much booze.

"Spill Wall"

This was one of my favorite outdoor things we did. We recreated windows to match the nearby buildings, then painted spilled pancake batter overtop of everything. It caught your eye from 20 blocks away.

We even hid other creators, the Dude Perfect Panda and Grace Helbig, in the wall as easter eggs.

Outdoor

Each outdoor poster referenced a particular episode from Hannah's weirdo channel.

Video

In Hannah's tv campaign, we focused on how her fans have helped her grow her channel from a drunken lark into an optimistic empire. 

"No Kid Hungry" Trivia Night

To support the campaign efforts, Hannah hosted a pub trivia night for fans. Proceeds went to benefit No Kid Hungry, a nonprofit dedicated to ending child hunger in America.

And here is the full case-study video featuring Hannah, Grace Helbig, and Dude Perfect.

Epic Rap Battles of History

Epic Rap Battles of history is two dudes, Lloyd "Epic Lloyd" Ahlquist and Pete "Nice Peter" Shukoff, who create video battle raps between historical characters. 

Fans suggest the match-ups, and the guys bring them to life in ridiculous ways.

We helped introduce the channel to a whole new audience with massive outdoor billboards, interactive ads, and films on tv and in theaters.

Banner Ad Battle

Inspired by the battle theme, we created a video game inside a banner ad.

You could choose your character and use a series of taunts and attacks against the other guy.

Mini-Documentary

We created a mini documentary that showed how these weird videos get made.

Out of Home

For a while, you couldn't walk around New York without seeing historical characters looking angry.

There was also a whole campaign about Mozart vs. Skrillex, but Skrillex's people killed it.

I can't really blame them.

SORTEDfood

SORTEDfood are four charming lads from London.

One is a chef.

The rest are... not.

To introduce SORTEDfood (along with fellow UK channel Copa90) to a wider audience, we created YouTube's biggest, most ambitious campaign ever. It was 100% digital: video, digital billboards, and interactive — not a scrap of paper involved.

To do this, we filmed 89 unique videos and GIFs, and placed them in hyper-specific media locations throughout London.

Dozens of Videos & GIFs

To pull off the campaign, we needed a LOT of video assets. We started by introducing the guys.

Then we created a whole series of "kitchen hacks" of questionable usefulness. Here's just one:

And then there were recipes. We use a technique called retargeting to tell a continuing story over three separate ads. First the guys show you how to make monkey bread. Later, you see them eating it. And if you haven't tried it by third time, they're kind of pissed.

The UK's Biggest All-Digital Campaign

SORTEDfood was part of the largest all-digital media campaign ever done in the UK. We used DoubleClick, Google's banner serving software, to target REALLY specific ads thorough London, based on factors like:

• your device
• your location
• the time of day
• sports schedules
• which ads you'd seen before

It's complicated stuff. Check out this video to see how we did it:

GIFs

The videos were supported by lots of GIFs. These were super fun to shoot.

Big Night In

To get fans involved in the campaign, we created "recipe boxes" filled with all the ingredients to make a SORTEDfood meal. (If you're wondering, it was a calzone.)

On Instagram and Twitter, the SORTEDfood guys invited fans to come pick up a box in person.

We set up trucks at Covent Garden and Spitalfields Market, where the four lads handed out recipe boxes to hundreds of fans.

Here's a video recap of the event:

Fans cooked the recipe along with a special SORTEDfood video, then posted their pictures online.

Blooper Reel

We shot so much for SORTEDfood, we even made a blooper reel. It's pretty dumb.

Created with Tiago Veiga, Bonnie Lutz, Leanne Amann, and SORTEDfood.

Video Game High School

Sometimes, YouTube is a place where your crazy fantasies can come true. Especially if that fantasy is a high school where all your classes are video games. 

Director Freddie Wong tapped his community of nearly 7 million fans to crowdfund Video Game High School, a YouTube series full of awesome special effects.

ComicCon Takeover

To show VGHS to the world, we did a massive takeover of New York ComicCon 2014.

Fan-Focused TV

Our TV spots highlighted the fact that this show wasn't made by Hollywood execs.

It was created with the help of real fans on YouTube.

In every ad we made, we hid secret links to behind-the-scenes clips:

One of the most fun things is watching fans get excited about "their" channel getting major attention.

Fun fact! One of the lead actors couldn't make it to the photo shoot, so I stood in as a body double until we could replace his head. 

Dude Perfect

Dude Perfect is a team of five guys from Texas who love sports.

Like, REALLY love sports.

They're famous for their crazy trick shots, but we realized what makes them so popular is their ability to turn anything into a game. 

So for their Beacon campaign, we decided to bring that spirit of play to real kids.

"The Dude Perfect Court" — Community Event & Restoration

The tagline for the campaign was "You make every day gameday." So we thought, why not actually improve a place where real kids play? We called New York City officials and discovered that Tompkins Square Park was in dire need of repair.

Tompkins Square Park: Before

Event Day: Park Takeover

Timed with the kickoff of the campaign, we turned the court into a trick shot playground.

We invited kids from all over the city, the borough president of Manhattan, and of course, the dudes themselves.

Here's a video recap:

Construction

After the event, we closed down the court for a few weeks and got to work.

A Brand New Court

And about a month later, the court was reopened, just in time for the summer basketball season.

The World's Largest Slingshot

For our video ads, we couldn't work with these guys and NOT do something epic. So we helped them build the world's largest slingshot and fire basketballs toward a net on a moving ATV.

Out of Home

And like always, we took over the city with crazy billboards.

Created with Tiago Veiga, Tim Stettner & Dude Perfect.

Copa90

Copa90 is a channel about soccer.

Sorry, football.

Fans-turned-presenters travel all over the world to find untold stories of tiny teams and passionate supporters. 

To introduce Copa90 (along with fellow UK channel SORTEDfood) to a wider audience, we created YouTube's biggest, most ambitious campaign ever. It was 100% digital  — video, digital billboards, and interactive — not a scrap of paper involved.

To do this, we filmed 89 unique videos and GIFs, and placed them in hyper-specific media locations throughout London.

Dozens of Videos & GIFs

To pull off the campaign, we needed a LOT of video assets. We started by introducing the channel itself.

Then we introduced the presenters, like Eli Mengem, a diehard football fan who was plucked from obscurity to become one of Copa90's star voices.

GIFs were used in out of home and digital media in place of print.

The UK's Biggest All-Digital Campaign

Copa90 was part of the largest all-digital media campaign ever done in the UK. We used DoubleClick, Google's banner serving software, to target REALLY specific ads thorough London, based on factors like:

• your device
• your location
• the time of day
• sports schedules
• which ads you'd seen before

It's complicated stuff. Check out this video to see how we did it:

Copalab 360 Event

To get fans involved, we created a 360 video experience called CopaLab. Anyone could step inside, show off their badass footy skills, and walk away with a GIF to share on social media.

Here's a video that shows the full scale of the event.

Created with Tiago Veiga, Rory Hanrahan, Roberto Lastra, and Copa90.