YouTube Canada has released the annual list of its most viewed ads in Canada.
The YouTube Canada Ads Leaderboard represents the ads that Canadians chose to watch, factoring in organic and paid views, watch time and audience retention. While two big global campaigns took the top spots, Air Canada with FCB and Maple Leaf Foods with Sid Lee also performed very strongly.
Among some of the trends spotted by YouTube: powerful storytelling works, from 30 second ads to an 1.5 hours; celebrities are still very effective when it comes to driving engagement, with more than 21 million Canadians watching Ed Sheeran for Heinz; and, of course, people still love humour—with Maple Leaf and GO Transit cited by YouTube as perfect examples of funny creative that people want to watch.
Here’s the complete list of the Top 10 YouTube ads (with agency partners) in Canada for 2019.
#1 Dream Crazier for Nike (Wieden Kennedy, Publicis Sapient)
#2 Ed’s Heinz Ad for KraftHeinz (David the Agency and Starcom)
#3 Travel Like a Canadian for Air Canada (FCB)
#4 I’m Not Eating That for Maple Leaf Foods (Sid Lee)
#5 Disney+: Start Streaming Now for Walt Disney Studios (Disney+ and Carat)
#6 Introducing iPhone 11 for Apple (TBWA\Media Arts Lab and OMD)
#7 The Bus. From GO. The GO Bus for Go Transit (BBDO and PHD)
#8 WestJet Introduces #FlyreFestival: April Fool’s for WestJet (Oliver and Media Experts)
#9 Reese The Movie: A Movie About Reese (an ASMR experience) for Reese Canada (Anomaly and UM)
#10 Bell Let’s Talk Day 2019: Official Video for Bell Canada (lg2 and Media Experts)