Sharing the results from our winning campaigns at the YouTube Works Awards 2025
On YouTube, while we all work towards buying it, attention really has to be earned.
With audiences scrolling faster and skipping videos quicker, discovering brands in entirely new ways, success on the platform has to go beyond great creatives or strong media buying. The platform, now, demands a deep understanding of their target market, culture, format, and the role video plays across the entire consumer journey.
Over the past year, our teams across Southeast Asia have been working closely with brands to get exactly that. We’ve been treating YouTube as more than a distribution channel. We see it as a platform for storytelling, brand discovery, and ultimately, measurable business growth.
And that approach of ours, on one of the most powerful platforms for brand building and performance, was recognised at the YouTube Works Awards 2025, where our work across the region received multiple wins and shortlists.
A Standout Night in Singapore
Our most recognised campaign, with our client Grab, came from Singapore, where the GrabFood Dine-Out Relaunch was honoured across several categories.
Relaunching a product feature on a mature platform can often feel like a routine announcement. Instead, this campaign treated the moment as a cultural reset for the brand’s dining experience, leveraging YouTube’s full ecosystem to build anticipation, create impact, and sustain engagement.
By orchestrating storytelling across formats and instances, the campaign transformed a feature update into a platform-wide narrative.
The campaign received recognition across four esteemed categories:
- Multi-format Storytelling – for building a cohesive narrative across multiple YouTube formats,
- The Big Bang – for delivering a high-impact launch moment on the platform,
- Masters of Media – for strategic excellence in media planning and execution, and
- Best of Singapore – recognising it as one of the best campaigns in the market.
Winning During Indonesia’s Key Festivity
In Indonesia, our work with Grab during Ramadan was also recognised.
The campaign “All Ramadan ads, all on Grab” received Silver (Runner-Up) in the Best of Festive category, celebrating its ability to authentically connect with audiences during one of the most culturally significant periods of the year in the market.
Ramadan advertising in Indonesia is also one of the most competitive periods in the marketing calendar. Standing out during this time requires brands to go beyond visibility and instead tap into the cultural and emotional fabric of the season.
By using YouTube’s storytelling formats to bring festive narratives to life with impact, the campaign struck a balance between cultural relevance and measurable business impact.
Regional Recognition Across Southeast Asia
Beyond the wins, several campaigns were also shortlisted across the region, further reflecting the measure and diversity of our impactful work with Grab.
In Thailand, Grab’s ‘Celebrate Grab’s 5-Star Athletes’ campaign was shortlisted for the Best of Festive category.
While in the Philippines, our ‘Summer’ campaign for Grab was shortlisted in The Big Bang, recognising its design to capture the excitement and energy of the season through a high-impact YouTube launch.
If we zoom out and look at it, and also since we have been doing it for a while and the results are evident, we can confidently say that these recognitions illustrate how brands across Southeast Asia are increasingly embracing YouTube as a platform for storytelling beyond plain advertising.
What Our Wins Tell Us About YouTube Today
Beyond the recognition itself, these campaigns reflect several shifts we’re seeing in how brands are growing on YouTube today.
- Platforms and audiences are rewarding storytelling.
Gone are the days when the most effective campaigns were simply running video ads just for visibility. Today, they’re building narratives across formats, from high-impact launches to sustained engagement throughout the funnel.
- Cultural moments are powerful growth levers.
From Ramadan in Indonesia to seasonal celebrations across Southeast Asia, brands that authentically participate in cultural moments are far more likely to earn attention and trust. Our campaign that won, for instance, was really no mere seasonal launch. We deliberately made sure to build a campaign that our audiences could connect with on a deeper level.
- Media strategy is as important as creative ambition.
Winning work today happens when creative ideas are paired with smart distribution strategies built on audience insights and format-native thinking.
At M+C Saatchi Performance, this intersection of creative storytelling, platform expertise, and performance-driven media sits at the core of how we approach every campaign.
Where Are We Heading With Video-Led Growth
If the past year has confirmed anything, it’s that YouTube is definitely not just a video platform. It is one of the strongest discovery engines, a cultural stage, and a performance channel, all in one.
Brands that recognise this are moving beyond one-off video campaigns and instead building video ecosystems where storytelling, audience insights, and media strategy work together to drive both brand equity and measurable growth.
Our teams across Southeast Asia and other markets are excited to continue pushing this evolution forward with our partners.
Because in a world where attention is harder than ever to capture, the brands that will thrive sustainably will treat YouTube as a key brand-building channel beyond distribution.
