What are the YouTube Works Awards?
The YouTube Works Awards celebrate and champion the brilliant minds producing the most innovative and effective advertising creative on YouTube in the past year.
Winners join an esteemed shortlist of trophy bearers that help shape the future of creative effectiveness on YouTube. Plus, they have the opportunity to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the industry’s best within published thought leadership and advertising industry moments.
Upcoming awards you don’t want to miss
In partnership with
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Kantar
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Contagious
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Contest begins
April 2, 2024 -
Submissions end
May 14, 2024 -
Winners announced
October 2024
2024
Award categories
This category champions your singular vision of creating something exciting and wholly original. How did your story punch through the page and onto the screen? What key creative decisions were made along the way to delight and excite? How did this make the work more effective, bold, and unforgettable?
We’re looking for campaigns that pushed boundaries with tech, responsibly and effectively, to spark new ideas, evolve the creative canvas, generate assets, or scale the campaign across devices and formats. How did AI, ML, automation, or other technology improve the creative process or help your assets shine? How did you harness technology creatively to elevate marketing outcomes and drive business impact? How did you experiment with new tech to drive results?
We’re on the hunt for YouTube Connected TV-first campaigns that use the big screen to make a big impact on their awareness and consideration objectives. How did you fine-tune your creative for the big screen? Did you set out to captivate audiences watching YouTube from their living rooms?
We want to see how you flexed your chameleon colors for different viewing contexts — whether it’s on the go on mobile or relaxed in the living room. When did you use different ad formats — long, short, vertical, audio, or otherwise skippable — to meet your audience on their terms? How did you navigate the changing tides of what viewers expect from their video content?
We don’t just mean channels with flashy content or brands that partnered with creators — we’re looking for brands that show us that YouTube is in their DNA. This brand regularly crafts content informed by consumer trends and knows how to nurture passionate online communities. In what ways did your content meet audiences where and how they’re watching? How did you deliver entertainment and inspiration — just like a creator would?
We’re looking for campaigns that demonstrate a brand’s fierce commitment to diversity, inclusion, sustainability, environmental issues, or other social causes. How did your campaign balance your brand’s purpose with a tangible impact that extends beyond the bottom line? How did you inspire and empower your audience to take action?
We’re looking for campaigns from small or medium-sized brands that had big-name ambitions and achieved the results to match. How did you transform limited resources into major impact? What brilliant creative idea or novel consumer insight helped your campaign punch above its weight?
The Grand Prix is our top prize; awarded to the campaign that breaks ground in multiple ways. This isn’t a category you can enter, but one you can hope to win if you show that your campaign checks all of the boxes.
Our 2024 U.S. Grand Jury
Ashwini Karandikar
EVP, Media, Technology, Data
4A’s
Ellie Bamford
CSO, North America
VML
Fernando Machado
Operating Partner
Garnett Station Partners
Jess Vultaggio
VP, Creative Culture & Effectiveness
Kraft Heinz
Jonathan Daly
Head of Communications Strategy
Johannes Leonardo
Judy John
Global CCO
Edelman
Kristin Lane
Head of Brand Strategy & Advertising MassMutual
Liv Lewis
Executive Vice President
EGAMI Group
Maria Elisa Vélez
Managing Director
DoorDash
Matt Peterson
YouTube Creator
Pedro Pérez
Chief Creative Officer
FCB Chicago
Ryu Yokoi
CDO, Personal Care NA & US Media
Unilever
Shannon Washington
Global CCO
Gotham Inc
Tyler Bahl
SVP and Head of Marketing
Activision
How to enter
The YouTube Works Awards are easy to enter, and free. So if you’re part of a marketing, media, creative, or agency team, show us your best-in-class digital work for your chance to take center stage!
Our judges will select the winners across each category and a Grand Prix will be awarded to the submission that best demonstrates brilliant results, storytelling, and creative effectiveness on YouTube.
Questions? Contact us at youtube-works-us@google.com
Best practices
• Consider co-writing your submission; media and creative collaborations help to tell the full story
• Tell a story with a beginning (objectives), middle (approach), and end (impact)
• Stick to simple and concise
• Include critical context around your creative
• Remember we need all relevant media referenced in your submission
• Note any factors external to YouTube that could have impacted results
• Share as many metrics as you can and include objectives, KPIs, and benchmarks
View past winners and more
Entry information
Please fill in the information below if you’d like to be notified about next year’s U.S. YouTube Works Awards.