What Works in YouTube Ads for Food Brands? (Archive, 2021)

Recorded in August 2021 during Simon's s.media agency era — a team compilation on food and drink creative. Published as part of a dated historical record.

How do you sell a taste nobody can taste?

Deciding on creative in the food industry means separating pure aesthetics from what actually gets results. The first principle: immerse the senses. The viewer can't taste the product, so you make up for the missing sense with sight and sound. For a cookie: they can't taste it, but they can hear the crack as it's split in half and see it looking irresistible. The classic brand example is Magnum — you can't taste the ice cream, but the cracking sound of that hard chocolate exterior brings back the memory of eating one yourself. That's how you immerse someone in a food ad.

Why do close-ups matter so much?

Research shows the majority of viewers watch ads on mobile, so conveying the full visual through close-up shots is essential. Show the benefit quickly with clear, crisp visuals; make the product look appealing and present, as if it's right there — how stretchy the cheese is on the pizza, the silky chocolate being poured into the mould so the viewer can almost taste it. Crisp video and imagery matter in any advertising, but especially for food, beverage and restaurant brands.

What does a human element add?

There are only so many times you can show the product itself, and one of the best ways to immerse the viewer further is a human element — it attaches a human story and increases the ad's effectiveness. IHOP's all-you-can-eat pancakes campaign ran both short and long-form videos; the long-form version put a person in the ad alongside the product — you never saw their face or watched them eat — and it was simply more relatable than the product-only short.

How do you brand without ruining the shot?

It's easy to do beautiful food photography, pan around, show people enjoying it — and then bolt a brand end-card on that gets missed entirely. Keep the brand front of mind throughout the ad. Some people lazily bung a logo in the corner, which sometimes works; but food offers a better opportunity — the packaging. Show people unwrapping it, make it interesting, keep the name in the frame. Coca-Cola can rely on being known; a newer brand can't, and YouTube is a great opportunity to fix that — so think creatively about keeping the name in front of people for the whole ad, because it's not just about taste and texture; they need to remember whose it was.

Should you list the ingredients?

Long-form content gives you room to tell the viewer every single ingredient — resist it. Don't underestimate how powerful it is to tell them what they're going to feel and enjoy instead. Is it crunchy? Mouth-watering? Give them the headlines — if there are no GMOs, say so — but skip the science project, because what they really want to know is what they'll taste and feel when they eat it.