Reaching the Unreachable - Engaging the NEET Youth with Spotify Adverting Campaigns

You Choose North Yorkshire Campaign Results

  • Total Reach: 2,011,648 Impressions in one month
  • Total Engagement: 8,078 Clicks
  • Average Cost per click: £0.75
  • Core Objective: Get in touch via the WhatsApp channel.
  • Positive social ROI
  • Creation of the following assets
    • Development campaign logo
    • 3 x Motion Graphics Ads to varying sizes
    • The creation of 4 distinct characters to represent the NEET’s and show diversity
    • Website design, build and hosting https://youchoosenyorks.com/
    • YouTube Channel
    • Social Media channels – Instagram and TikTok
    • Optimised YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Spotify Advertising Campaigns
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The Challenge – Reach NEET’s in a very short time

“You Choose North Yorkshire” is a strategic initiative funded by North Yorkshire Combined Authority and North Yorkshire Council’s Trailblazer programme via the UK Government, designed to re-engage “NEET’s” (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) aged 16–25.

There were 1,012,000 young people, aged 16 to 24, not in education, employment or training (NEET) between January and March 2026, according to the latest official estimates released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) . This number has risen from 957,000 in the period from October to December 2025.

The aim of the campaign was to tell the audience about the career and education opportunities available to help them to upskill, earn money, and improve their future job/career opportunities.

The councils needed to find new ways to engage this audience over and above their usual outreach (community outreach via outworkers, posters and events), which had failed to engage with their target demographic.

We had a very tight deadline to work with due to the funding available. In fact, we had only one month to plan and deliver a campaign, and an additional month to run it.

The Councils’ internal policies restrict them from running the accounts needed to reach this audience – Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify Advertising campaigns and WhatsApp – so they turned to us for a strategic and creative solution.

You Choose North Yorkshire NEET's Spotify Advertising campaigns
Spotify Advertising campaigns to reach Niche Audiences

Reaching NEET’s with 8-Bit ad campaigns

To reach the NEET’s, we knew we needed to take a creative approach that would stand out and be memorable. It also needed to be something we could produce quickly and with enough volume that we could test different creative concepts.

To reach this audience, it was clear to us that our creative couldn’t look like a marketing campaign from the council. That would be dead in the water.

As we didn’t have much time, we went with our gut on the creative and the North Yorkshire Council’s team backed us. We went for a full 8-Bit creative with pixelated graphics, bold vintage gaming-style audio track and straight to the point video scripts.

In line with our gaming-theme, we leaned into the NPC (Non Playing Character) convention, creating characters that sought and gained assistance. We hoped this would resonate with our target demographic who likely feel isolated and left behind.

It couldn’t have looked any less like a marketing campaign from a council. And maybe that’s why it worked so well.

YCNY logos and characters

A mobile-first marketing campaign

  • We designed and Developed a one-page, mobile optimised microsite YouChooseNYorks.com designed specifically to work on mobiles and lead people to find out more using a dedicated WhatsApp channel.
  • Initially we talked about adding ManyChat which is a tool to help co-ordinate automated responses across different social media channels – WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
  • However the council were not allowed to use ManyChat and so we went with using just WhatsApp.
  • The council were also restricted from using Instagram, TikTok and Spotify, all vital for reaching this audience, so we set up and managed those social media channels too.
  • As getting a new number for the WhatsApp group would have taken a long time to be approved by the council, we created a new number using a low cost eSIM and created a business profile for the Council to use via the WhatsApp desktop app.

Spotify advertising campaigns were a revelation

Since organic growth was not feasible within the timeframe, we had to go for a “paid-only” approach across Social Media channels:

  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Spotify

Spotify advertising campaigns made a lot of sense. Our audience of 16 to 25 year olds spend a lot of casual time on Spotify listening to music but also watching podcasts and videos. Despite what you may think there are still lots of people, especially in this age range, who have a free Spotify account which plays ads between the tracks.

To make the paid social media ads work, we had to add a voice over to the Spotify-specific ads, but other than that, we used the same three creatives we used on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Of all the channels, Spotify had the lowest cost per click (CPC) at £0.19. It also had the longest view time of all the channels.

What would we do if we had more time?

Unfortunately the councils only had the budget to run this over a very short period. Which was a shame, as the campaign had gained momentum.

We did learn a lot over the short period we had on the campaign. If we’d had more time, we would have recommended some of the following ideas.

  • Spend more ad budget on Spotify, TikTok and Instagram.
  • YouTube worked well, but over this short period it was more expensive per click.
  • Create more organic posts on social media. The 8-Bit campaign worked well, but given more time we would have developed it to use more real life interviews, UGC and pop-up content as we did with the Multiply Campaigns we ran for the council previously
  • We would have developed the website more to gain natural ranking via SEO and used AdWords to drive traffic directly to the site
  • Digital PR would have also been a major feature in the campaign, to spread success stories and highlight the issues facing NEET’s in North Yorkshire
  • ManyChat would have been a great way to provide more information and engage more with the NEET’s in an information rich way.