Sanitarium - Alternative Dairy Co and UP&GO : Strategy | YouTube | Creative
Sanitarium: Turning YouTube Shorts Into a Reach and Engagement Engine
Connected Media helped Sanitarium turn YouTube Shorts into a more efficient reach and engagement channel for both Alternative Dairy Co and UP&GO. Through ongoing optimisation, creative testing, and performance-led decision making, the campaign consistently outperformed key benchmarks - delivering CPMs more than 50% below benchmarks and VTRs up to 3.3x higher.
The Challenge
YouTube was already part of Sanitarium’s online video mix. The opportunity was to make it work harder.
We needed to increase incremental reach within the YouTube environment while building brand awareness – without paying premium CPMs to do it.
The challenge was bigger than simply distributing more video. Shorts demanded a different creative approach. Traditional TVC cut-downs weren’t necessarily built for an environment where audiences decide almost instantly whether to keep watching or swipe.
The question became: what actually makes people stop and watch branded content in Shorts?
Objectives
Connected was tasked with driving efficient reach and stronger video engagement across the FY26 campaign.
Success meant delivering CPMs below both Google’s benchmark and the set Mad Clarity benchmark, while achieving VTRs above Google’s benchmark.
Just as importantly, the campaign needed to generate practical creative learnings that could be applied quarter after quarter.
Strategy & Execution
The broader OLV strategy combined YouTube (6 & 15 second formats), with SVOD activity across Amazon, Netflix, Kayo, and ESPN. Within YouTube Shorts, Connected Media focused on maximising efficient delivery while identifying the creative characteristics most likely to hold attention.
Audience strategy was tailored to each brand, using relevant consumer signals and behaviours to support efficient reach and stronger campaign performance. This allowed Connected to align media delivery with each brand’s growth objectives while keeping the approach flexible enough to optimise throughout the campaign.
Working alongside Sanitarium’s in-house Co-Lab creative team, Connected Media reviewed performance weekly to understand what made audiences continue watching. Creative results were also considered alongside Meta and TikTok performance, helping the team stay aligned with changing short-form behaviours and platform trends.
That created a continuous learning loop: launch, measure, identify what was holding attention, and feed those learnings back into the next round of creative.
Results
Google Benchmarks
>50%
We beat Google’s benchmarks by over 50%
Mad Clarity Benchmarks
>50%
We beat Mad Clarity benchmarks by over 50%
VTR
3.3X
Quarterly VTRs exceeded Google’s benchmarks – by up to 3.3X
