Sign in with Google Is your marketing playbook up-to-date and helping you thrive in Southeast Asia’s (SEA) dynamic digital landscape?
Kantar’s latest analysis of the region’s most effective and creative storytelling campaigns, based on the latest YouTube Works Awards (SEA), reveals three traits of successful video campaigns:
These three qualities are derived from key consumer insights and trends in SEA, and achieved through the use of AI-powered solutions and campaigns.
Here’s why you should update your marketing playbook, and how you can do it to succeed like your peers .
Why creative multiformat storytelling is a winner: Dutchie
Viewers today are scrolling, streaming, searching, and shopping seamlessly. And as they do so, they’re watching more of both short and long videos, and on all screens. That’s reflected in recent findings about viewer behaviours across SEA:
- Longer YouTube watch time: In Indonesia, for example, YouTube watch time grew by more than 20% year over year in June 2025 versus 2024.1
- Soaring Shorts consumption: Daily views of YouTube Shorts jumped from 70 billion globally in 2024, to 200 billion in 2025.2
- Growth of YouTube on connected TV (CTV): Millions of people in SEA increasingly watch YouTube on the biggest screen at home. In Thailand, for instance, watch time on YouTube on CTV has more than doubled in the last three years (Q1 2022 versus Q1 2025).3
To meet audiences across myriad video formats and screens efficiently, marketers are strategically using AI-powered campaigns. Video reach, Video views, and Demand Gen campaigns, for example, deliver the right creative to the right audience at the right moment.
And by using the AI-powered outpaint feature, which expands the content of an image to an area with different dimensions while preserving the original quality, brands can quickly adapt video assets for multiple ad formats.
Tapping YouTube’s seamless storytelling capabilities helped yogurt brand Dutchie bring its “Fight For Thais’ Gut” campaign to life, driving massive awareness and sales.
Using YouTube’s immersive long-form video format, it captivated audiences with a five-minute martial arts flick about Thai people grappling with gut-related troubles like acne and constipation, and how Dutchie’s yogurt products came to their rescue. It also ran short segments of the storyline in bumper ads that spoke to audiences’ specific health needs.
The resonant ads helped Dutchie grow sales by 11.4% and bag both the Grand Prix and Multiformat Storytelling honours at the YouTube Works Awards (SEA).
Why creator-led partnerships drive results: Honda
Brands are also going beyond creator endorsements, and shaping video campaigns with creators’ personal voice.
That appeals to audiences, with 83% of surveyed viewers in Indonesia4 and 89% of surveyed viewers in Thailand5 say that brand collaborations with creators feel authentic on YouTube, outperforming the average of other online platforms, according to a survey by MTM.
To find creators who perfectly fit your brand, use YouTube’s Creator Partnership Hub. It recommends creators based on insights and lets you search for a match by topic.
And to get the most out of your partnership, extend the reach of creator assets in these ways:
- Tap YouTube Shopping affiliate programme, run in partnership with marketplaces like Shopee, to make the path from inspiration to purchase seamless.
- Use partnership ads and Demand Gen campaigns with product feeds drive high-quality traffic and sales directly to the Shopee platform, and optimise for return on ad spend.
Honda wanted to boost brand discovery for its BeAT motorbike, which faced low consideration rates among Indonesia’s Gen Z. So it collaborated with virtual YouTube creator Kobo Kanaeru, who is highly popular among youth.
The campaign went viral after Kobo Kanaeru, riding a Honda BeAT bike, interacted with audiences during gamer creators’ live streams. Search volumes for “BeAT Kobo” zoomed up by 170%, while brand awareness among Gen Z soared 6.2 percentage points, earning Honda the Brands and Creators accolade at the YouTube Works Awards (SEA).
Why branding and performance fuel sustained growth: Vaseline
Winning campaigns today focus not only on driving short-term performance, but sustained growth too.
A study from WARC shows that only 5% of consumers are ready to buy today. The remaining 95% will be ready to buy in the future.
Performance marketing lets you convert the 5% of current demand, while brand marketing lets you create future demand among the 95%. And YouTube, with its rich ecosystem of solutions that drive everything from awareness to engagement and conversions, is uniquely positioned to achieve both performance and branding gains.
That’s why Unilever’s lotion brand Vaseline turned to YouTube to help it win widespread consumer interest for its new sunscreen product Gluta HYA SPF.
Ahead of the product’s launch in Thailand, Vaseline strengthened its brand reputation for skin protection through AI-powered campaigns like Video reach, which let it maximise awareness among Thai audiences for its “Power of Healing” brand message.
The brand strategy primed audiences’ purchase intent for Gluta HYA SPF, which debuted via YouTube ads. Tapping into Thai viewers’ enthusiasm for pop culture content, Vaseline seamlessly integrated the product into creative storytelling ads promoting “The White Lotus,” a hit TV series set in a Thai resort.
And to supercharge the ads’ performance, it tapped Video reach and Video views campaigns to expand audience reach and engagement.
The radiant results, which included a purchase intent lift of 7.3%, won Vaseline the Masters of Media title at the YouTube Works Awards 2025 (Thailand).
To elevate your marketing playbook this year, tap multiformat storytelling, creator-led partnerships, and campaigns that fuel both branding and performance. And to showcase your own most effective campaigns, stay tuned for the YouTube Works Awards 2026 (SEA), which will open submissions shortly.
