It’s finally happening in the mainstream. It is good to see that a company like Asda is taking the bull by the horns when working with digital talent.
Asda (Wallmart owned UK supermarket retailer) have partnered with Gleam Futures (Digital Talent Agency) and created one of the most innovative YouTube strategies I have have seen so far this year.
99% of brands and social media managers are still at a total loss when it comes to engaging with digital natives and getting the most out of YouTube, however Asda have struck upon a winning formula so far.
Interestingly they have branded a new channel rather than adding this content to their own existing Asda channel. This allows them much more freedom and flexibility with content and will drop the defences of many consumers as they idly click through content on YouTube. It will also allow them to grow an audience around the Mum’s Eye View brand so ordinary more commercial messaging won’t interrupt. Very smart move.
The story begins in March when they uploaded their first video featuring Sam Chapman (1.6 million subscribers) this got their first video a cool 10,000 views in the first 24 hours driving 2000 subscribers. For anyone who has built a YouTube channel from scratch they will agree that is an excellent start in anyone’s books. The first video now sits on 71,000 views and counting.
The first video gained a huge result and this was achieved in the main part by a video that Sam did on her channel as well as other social shares. It was a Mothers Day make up tutorial that drove people Asda’s first video. This original video from Sam now sits on a quarter of a million views.
From there the channel has blossomed and they have continued to grow. To date they have partnered with a few key people from the Gleam roster working in areas of food, fashion and lifestyle.
This strategy is excellent for a number of reasons.
- The brand is not overly selling their products but are having them seen in situ by hundreds of thousands of people. It allows them to bring the products to life in a fun and engaging way.
- Asda have managed to align themselves effortlessly with the digital superstars of today, right at the time they are starting to break into the mainstream media.
- Asda now has an excellent YouTube brand strategy that sets them miles apart from their competitors – and in such a competitive market with tiny margins this will, over time, be fundamentally important for bottom line results.
It will be interesting to see how the strategy develops and how they start to bring through talent of their own to front the channel or particular content strands. Here is a recent interview with Dom Smales (MD of Gleam Futures) and Dom Burch (Senior director marketing innovation and new revenue Walmart UK) explaining a bit more about why the strategy works and how to better work with YouTubers.
I definitely recommend subscribing to the Mum’s Eye View channel to see how the strategy unfolds.
At the time of writing (mid September) the channel has
- 55,000 subscribers
- 2 million views
With the talent they are working with, expect that figure to rocket over the next few months. I get the feeling it might not all be about John Lewis this Christmas! Awesome job by Dom, Asda, and the Gleam Team.
