What happens when brands adopt creators’ winning content strategies?

Reaching ad-averse consumers is harder than ever, and some savvy brands have realized that working directly with creators is a solid “in” with their younger and often marketing-fatigued audiences. But brands can also go a different direction: some are looking to craft successful campaigns not just by working directly with creators, but by studying their content strategies and paying attention to what kinds of videos have staying power on platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

We recently wrote about Nutter Butter, which has reinvigorated interest in its so-2000s lunchbox staple by filling its TikTok account with things like a lo-fi video of a single shrimp being lovingly placed on top of a Nutter Butter with the caption “yes.” There’s a mysterious plot weaving through all the “Nutterverse” content, and that’s right on trend for an internet audience that loves analog horror, the backrooms, The Amazing Digital Circus, and irreverent, nonsensical humor.

More brands are taking this approach–and YouTube is giving them awards for doing it.

The latest YouTube Works Awards, which honor excellence in advertising on the platform, gave nods to Nissan, the U.S. Navy (in collaboration with VML and Wavemaker U.S.), Claritin, L.L.Bean, and Booking.com at an awards ceremony in New York City this week.

This year’s awards had over 400 entries, and just five winners recognized. Nissan took home the top honor, Grand Prix, for its four-hour ape of Lofi Girl, the wildly successful 24-hour music stream that started as a single channel on YouTube (and was once taken down, sparking mass protests) but over the past couple of years has expanded into a full brand called Lofi Records, with merch and more. These days, its core channel has over 14 million subscribers and brings in around 30 million views per month. (If that figure seems low, remember Lofi Girl is an all-hours livestream of music, and people are probably listening for lengthy periods of time.)

Nissan copied Lofi Girl’s style completely: in place of the animated girl studying with her cat was an animated driver zooming along city streets. Billboards for the car she was driving, Nissan’s new electric model Ariya

, pop up occasionally in the background.

YouTube described the campaign as “groundbreaking,” and a move that “solidif[ied] its position as an innovative, culturally relevant brand in the U.S.” Choosing Lofi Girl as its inspiration “tapped into audience affinities and the cultural zeitgeist,” YouTube added.

The Navy, VML, and Wavemaker U.S., meanwhile, took home the “Brands as Creators” award for the third season of its edutainment series Sailor VS, which gives an inside look at life across numerous Navy jobs. Unlike Nissan, the Navy did work directly with content creators, but the very concept of this series shows it’s paying attention to what people watch from creators–and which creators they watch. Sailor VS is long-form, has an element of challenge (creators often go head-to-head with Navy professionals), and above all is scientific and educational content about sailors’ everyday lives, something viewers want more and more of these days.

Sailor VS‘ past seasons tapped creators like Open Sauce founder William Osman, Vsauce, and DALLMYD, and this season brought in dog handler Darryl Mayes and linguist Xiaoma to talk about why the skills they already share with viewers on YouTube can be necessary for Navy careers.

The Navy chose to produce this series because it’s seeing “declining sign-ups among Gen Z,” it said in a press release. That’s true of every military branch, for reasons that probably won’t surprise you. What might surprise you, though, is that the Navy says the third season of Sailor VS drove “a remarkable 48% increase in searches for Navy sign-ups.”

Other winners also followed creator content strategies: Claritin did a #TeamTrees 2.0 by using its campaign to launch the DiversiTree project, where it planted female trees around the world; L.L.Bean aped YouTube’s leagues of outdoor enthusiasts (like this backpacking couple) to produce a series of how-to videos, another popular genre; and Booking.com did a message-sending musical, which we’ve also seen from a few choice creators.

It’s clear these brands see creators for what they are: experts at crafting content that gets viewers, keeps viewers, builds loyal communities, and drives long-term interest in what they have to offer. And YouTube is rewarding them for finding inspiration and partnership in the millions of creators who upload videos to its platform every day.