The Challenge
In May 2025, the NFL announced a historic first: the Week 1 Friday night game — Kansas City Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers in São Paulo — would be streamed live and free worldwide exclusively on YouTube and YouTube TV. To make football fans aware of this game being streamed through YouTube, the YouTube team collaborated with various CTV platforms including Whale TV.
The Solution
YouTube partnered with Whale TV to promote the NFL Brazil Game, marking one of YouTube LATAM’s first connected TV (CTV) campaigns.
The campaign aimed to build strong awareness ahead of the event, position YouTube as a destination for live sports streaming, and ultimately drive tune-in through high-impact visibility on connected TVs.
With rapidly growing CTV audiences across the region, Whale TV provided a premium environment to reach viewers directly on the biggest screen in the home at the right moment.
As part of the campaign, Whale TV activated its available ad inventory across Brazil and Argentina. The campaign featured high-impact placements, including the Home Screen Masthead and promotional tiles across both the Home Screen and App Store. All creatives were localized in Spanish and Portuguese to ensure regional relevance.
The tile placements launched two days before the game was live and ended 24 hours after the game concluded. This extended runtime allowed viewers to access the game as on-demand content, which remained directly accessible via the campaign placements.
“With our Take Over ad package, Whale TV can give advertisers a way to reach all the viewers in a market across our entire footprint. Advertisers can deliver a marketing message, and call to action, on our Masthead placement on the home screen, something everybody sees when they turn on their TV,” said Chris Hock, VP and Head of Whale TV Ads. “For YouTube, this enabled them to deliver an extremely focused 100% share of voice tune-time campaign on nearly eight million Whale TVs across South America the week leading up the NFL game in Sao Paulo.”
The Results
Across the full campaign period, the campaign achieved an average click-through rate (CTR) of 0.8%, with engagement peaking during and around the live game window — as expected for a live sports event.
On game day, the campaign reached a CTR of 0.82%, demonstrating strong audience responsiveness at the key moment of interest.
The Masthead placement achieved an average impression frequency of 4.81 exposures per unique device, ensuring sustained visibility and effective message reinforcement leading into the event.
