Ariana Grande: YouTube

YouTube Brings Billboards To Life In US Push For 'Premium' Product

About the project

When it comes to promoting its in-house YouTube Originals series, the Google-owned platform has a long history of high-profile billboard campaigns in New York and Los Angeles. True to form, the tech giant secured landmark sites across the US to present fly-on-the-wall album documentary “Dangerous Woman Diaries” and employed the Landmrk platform to incentivise fans to take a closer look. Tweets from the platform’s official, 70 million-strong Twitter channel drove Grande fans to these top-end locations to unlock additional content surrounding the series and, naturally, produce some “Dangerous Woman”-skinned selfies.

Results

The opening instalment of Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman Diaries” has now racked up 16 million views and the singer has since released “thank u, next” to huge critical acclaim. The series as a whole was employed by YouTube as a means to drive subscriptions to its YouTube Premium product, and judging by online noise, the tactic worked. What was interesting about the project was the fact that YouTube activated this promotion unilaterally and didn’t turn to Ariana Grande’s social presence for an additional push -- meaning the campaign was effectively YouTube-only and more about promoting the platform’s new product rather than boosting content visibility.