National Citizen Service

Recruit 15-17 year olds to go on the NCS Summer programme, using influencers.

Instead of NCS telling teens to ‘Change Your Summer’, we enlisted the support of well-known YouTube influencers we knew resonated with our 15-17 year old audience to create disruptive pre-rolls, flipping the ad format on its head.

Each started their video in their normal vlogging style (with a smile, or a wave, or a ‘hey guys’), making it seem as though the audience were watching their usual videos. But then there was a twist. Each influencer changed tack, asking “are you going to spend all summer watching YouTube, or are you going to Change Your Summer?”. NCS content then followed, showing teens the adventure and excitement of an NCS programme, before cutting back to the influencer: “So, what’s it going to be?”

By using relevant voices to speak to teens, the pre-rolls outperformed the previous brand campaign ads.