YouTube Channel of the Month: Alfa Romeo

Building a global brand through YouTube

Alfa Romeo is an internationally well-known company, and one with a long history. This month we are celebrating and showcasing how Alfa Romeo has built strong YouTube channels in mulitiple countries, helping to build their global brand.

Alfa Romeo has built accessible YouTube channels across several territories. The main significance of their channel is their ability to localise different country channels and create a strong sense of brand identity throughout.

Read on to see why we believe Alfa Romeo is a brand leader when it comes to brand YouTube channels across multiple countries.

1.      Their localisation strategy is…

Tailored

Alfa Romeo provides separate channels for a wide range of countries including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the US, UK, and the Middle East. Each respective country uses dynamic subtitling, meaning the videos are tailored to everyone.

Bespoke

The content of each channel is varied and uses a local language content strategy, meaning that many videos are presented by local speakers in their own language. This is an important way of creating appeal and engaging more personally with audiences.

2.      Their brand consistency is…

Eye-catching

Video thumbnails are well optimised which is a key factor in grabbing the attention of the audience. It also creates consistency across videos by using similar thumbnail images, meaning audiences can easily locate videos with similar content. This eye-catching consistency is more likely to keep audiences on the channel for longer as signposting series videos means they are more likely to continue watching the rest of videos in the series.

Recognisable

Every European channel and the US channel use the same banner, maintaining a sense of brand consistency and recognition across channels. Similarly, the logo is used consistently across all channels and videos, as well as blue and maroon brand colours, emphasising brand identity by anchoring different territory channels to overarching themes.

Key campaigns are also promoted across all territory channels. For example, the promotional videos for the new model ‘Alpha Romeo Tonale’ are apparent across channels but are cleverly localised through the availability of subtitles and the use of different country speakers.

3.      Their channel structure is…

Accessible

The channels are easy to navigate by being split into different categories of videos, allowing users to find content easily. This is shown by the homepage structure which is generally split into product categories, including new products and key promotional campaigns.

Organised

Series videos are placed under clearly labelled shelf titles, improving the overall organisation of the channel.

For example, many territories have variations of historical Alfa Romeo series, which look back at the brand history and past products. These include ‘Storie Alfa Romeo’ on the French channel and ‘110-year tour’ on the US channel, which are both easily accessible under titled series shelves.

To become the best possible version of the channel, this month we have also come up with some ways Alfa Romeo could build on their great work:

Titles

One small change that would help channel optimisation is the inclusion of the channel territory in the video titles. Not only would it be a great indicator for new audiences, it would also reinforce brand consistency and title name consistency, meaning greater visibility and engagement. 

Strategy

Another change could include optimising the UK channel, which is managed differently to other territories. Although it does well as a channel in its own right, its connection to other channels isn’t always clear. They use a different banner, and the content is also different, meaning it doesn’t continue the same strong brand recognition as some of the other channels. However, its themes and videos are still well localised and country specific.

Features

Lastly, Alfa Romeo could take greater advantage of YouTube features for improved optimisation, such as the community channel or use of livestreaming, which would boost engagement even further.

Given the time, care, and amount of research it takes to come to a decision about buying a new car, car companies are missing the chance to engage with the online research stage of the consumer journey. Where they could really stand out is through videos being readily available during the key moments of research with informational and user experience videos. A good localisation strategy can mean that whatever the country territory, these videos will be available and accessible throughout the research process. Therefore, it’s important to note Alfa Romeo’s ability to stand out and demonstrate some of the ways this can be done.

Well done to Alfa Romeo for their wonderful work on providing accessibility across territories and exemplifying the ways in which other car companies’ YouTube channels could be improved.

Come back in July to find out who we have awarded brand of the month to next!

Need help? 

We are YouTube experts who will help manage, integrate, optimise, amplify and evaluate your YouTube content and channel, ensuring you reach the right audience and drive high quality engagement and action rates. Get in touch to find out how we can help with your YouTube marketing strategy: stuart@navigatevideo.com