NEW YORK ? A Schick executive at the 2015 Mobile Marketing Association Forum New York affirmed that tapping social media influencers on YouTube catapults the effectiveness and reach of mobile video advertising, provided that the influencers are allowed creativity to expand on the brand?s message.

During the ?How Schick Intuition Captivated Women With Mobile Video? session, the executive discussed details of the brand?s YouTube campaigns for its women?s Schick Intuition razor, highlighting the importance of choosing influencers who are in line with the target audience. As the brand sought to connect with millennial working women, it selected two key individuals to spread awareness of the razor?s functionality via creative manners and run giveaways to promote the product.

?We knew we wanted to launch this in 2014, and we knew digital had to be a very hardworking engine for us, particularly as we wanted to connect with millennial working women,? said Charlie King, group marketing director of women?s shaving systems at Energizer Personal Care, New York. ?We wanted to do something fun and engaging and consistent with Intuition brand equity.?

The YouTube effect
Schick was able to determine that millennial women are very active on social media and mobile, and are prone to consuming a significant amount of video on mobile.

?Video content as well as mobile were two important pieces of the puzzle,? Mr. King said.

Other research displayed that three-fourths of the key target audience looks to YouTube influencers, prompting the brand to contact several popular online personalities. Schick found that leveraging social influencers equated in effective brand marketing.

?The influencers themselves have established a lot of trust with their audience,? said Tom Beeby, executive creative director, principal and co-founder of Beeby Clark+Meyler, New York.

Schick teamed up with personalities Brittani Louise Taylor and Weylie Hoang, who made an engaging song revolving around a brand concept and a do-it-yourself video, respectively.

?We?re talking about weaving the brand message into the classic behaviors, the tone and manner of the influencer herself,? Mr. Beeby said. ?What we?ve found to be more effective is not to try and totally script something for an influencer, because we can?t possibly speak in her voice as well as she can.

?The millennial audience who?s consuming content from these influencers is extremely sensitive.?

He advised for brands and agencies to work on a brief, show it to the selected influencer and provide a few concepts and allow him or her to gravitate towards one.

Consumer response
Since the brand chose influencers with lots of scale and over one million followers, it found a large amount of positive responses from consumers to the mobile videos. Consumers were asked to participate by sending in their own versions of do-it-yourself projects affiliated with the topic in the videos, taken from one of the razor?s capabilities.

Users also had the opportunity to win prizes such as spa vacations, while the brand received additional, authentic content to showcase on social media. Mr. Beeby advised marketers to aim for garnering quality content from consumers rather than quantity.

?The idea is to do a UGC element to gather enough content to share and create a greater sense of participation in the program itself,? Mr. Beeby said.

Overall, the brand saw 1.5 million video views, with a 55 percent video completion rate. They reached 18 million impressions, and saw more than 1,500 overwhelmingly positive comments.

?Influencer content programs are really a rich space for us to continue to look at,? Mr. King said. ?We wanted to drive a lot of sales and we were able to do that with engagement content.

?I think this gave us a lot of confidence that the influencer approach is a powerful one.?

Final Take
Alex Samuely is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York