Since day one, the objective of all Google brands is to help people with information, technology and organization. But, in 2020, this structure was shaken. As Covid-19 took over, the world needed information about one thing above all: vaccines. Well, this was an issue in Brazil. The problem, though, wasn't people not wanting to get vaccinated. It was the wave of fake news about vaccines led by many famous names including Brazil's president himself, Bolsonaro.

The fake news wave about vaccines was spreading and Google's YouTube brand began to suffer as many people referred to it as a source of misinformation about the theme. YouTube wasn't seen as a platform with trustful information by Brazilians. In this scenario, talking about protective measures and vaccines didn't seem proprietary for the brand.

Our challenge was to turn YouTube into a space recognized by trustworthy content.

The first step was moderation: We removed thousands of videos that spread fake news from the platform – 91% with 100 views or less.

But moderating wasn't enough.

We then made a PSA encouraging people to wash their hands. Still, a more impactful attitude to affirm YouTube as a trustful content generator was needed.

So we produced easy to understand, fact checked branded content, and compiled it in a proprietary YouTube channel, "YouTube Vaccines".

Now, how could we convince users to go to this hub?

The insight came from the platform itself:

Truthful information about health and vaccines spreaders – doctors, scientists, influencers – are all on YouTube. The biggest authorities used the platform to share credible information about the vaccines.

If these trustable names were already a part of the platform, therefore YouTube also has the authority to talk about these themes in a trustful way.

We used the voice of trusted, established health professionals who were already creators or part of content inside our platform to make people notice that they could find the answers to their questions and discover more information on the YouTube Vaccines channel.

Beyond that, big national celebrities acted as another layer of influence, sharing their own questions about the vaccines and keeping a conversation going with the experts. That way, we could make the branded content more approachable and show that all people, no matter how famous they were, could have doubts about the theme and find the facts on the YouTube Vaccines hub.

Through a data-driven process, we selected the main questions about vaccines and used media intelligence to find agglomeration spots to bring the campaign to life in the most relevant placements possible. This intelligence let us adapt the assets at the speed in which information and necessities around the subject changed too – a.k.a. very fast.

From June to August, we fueled TV and online films, social media posts and OOH ads in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro with daily updated content based on top searches about Vaccines. Consequently, every asset going live and getting promoted was timely and precise. For instance: when we noticed the population wasn't getting their booster doses, we made new content to reinforce the conversation.

In the end, YouTube managed to be perceived not only as a legitimate source of information, but as the preferred platform to do so.

Perception that "YouTube is a place where I can find trustworthy information" grew 13%, 6% above the KPI. More specifically about Vaccines, YouTube had a 10.1% lift – 10 million users – in "provides trustful info around Covid-19 vaccines", 2x bigger than other Google Brands Covid-19 campaigns.

The preference for YouTube above other platforms rose, with 2x more favorability growth than YouTube campaigns usually do.

And the size of the campaign got reflected on how far it reached: 2,9 billion impressions and 2,8 million engagements.

After all, YouTube gave a helping hand to raise vaccinations per day by almost half a million compared to before the campaign, a number that potentially saved US$15bi in direct medical costs and, most of all, 300K potential lives.