How CHEP Flipped the Ad Targeting Playbook to Engage Gen MZ

Brands today tend to look beyond traditional channels and messages to captivate Millenials and Gen-Z (Gen MZ). But Flipvertising, CHEP’s campaign promoting Samsung's flagship smartphone - the Galaxy Z Flip4 - tapped into the power of influencers to turn the paradigm on its head.

The campaign, which inspires young people to manipulate algorithms and uncover user-generated content, was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity for Audience Targeting and Engagement Strategy.

The minds behind the project, CHEP’s senior art director Will Winter-Irving and senior copywriter Joe Ranallo, took LBB’s Tom Loudon through the campaign from inception to execution.

LBB> What were the objectives of the Flipvertising campaign that made it stand out?

Will> The brief from Samsung was to drive hype among Gen MZ for pre-ordering the new Galaxy Z Flip4, Australia’s most innovative phone. Our objectives were to drive interest in the product, and intent to pre-order.

LBB> How did CHEP develop the idea of Flipvertising for Samsung’s flagship smartphone?

Joe> We knew from experience that Gen Z wasn’t massively influenced by traditional ad messages. They always turned to their favourite YouTubers or reviewers for answers. They do love free phones, though. So we wondered how we could drive them to see all this content people were already making about the Z Flip4 that we didn’t make or pay for. 

Plus, with so many tech-savvy young whippersnappers talking about algorithms on TikTok and Instagram, we knew if we challenged them to start manipulating theirs, they wouldn’t have any problem figuring out how to do that whatsoever. 

LBB> What was the strategy behind flipping the idea of ad targeting for this campaign?

Will> We recognised that our primary audience for the Galaxy Z Flip4, GenMZ, was the demographic who are technologically more in tune and therefore more sceptical of targeted advertising because they know how it works.

In a world that is so heavily saturated with brands fighting for a share of voice and attention, and consumers who are tuning ads out and demanding protection of their online privacy, brands are going to have to work much harder than before to capture the interest of an audience who is actively tuning them out.

The implication saw us take a different approach, tap into the creative use of data and not rely on our ability to “chase” consumers around the internet. 

LBB> Did the competition for Australian Gen-Zers contribute to the campaign's ultimate success?

Joe> Absolutely. The opportunity to win the Galaxy Z Flip4, at a time when devices had just been announced and were scarce, was a big hook to get people in, and it worked.

LBB> How did the campaign impact brand sales for Samsung?

Will> The campaign was part of an overall plan of activities to help launch the Galaxy Z Flip4. 

While we believe in looking at the sum of all the parts, for the time period when Flipvertising was in the market  we saw huge search spikes - 41% higher than the Unpacked announcement, which is historically the highest spike we experience annually — as well as increased sessions on-site and significantly increased sales. 

LBB> What were the key challenges faced during the execution of the campaign, and how were they overcome?

Joe> The mechanics behind Flipvertising had never been done before and were very technical, so there were naturally many obstacles that we had to overcome.

From a media perspective, the main challenge we ran into was waiting for the first YouTube pre-roll ad to finally fire off and appear live. It ended up taking longer than anticipated since we were working with a tiny targeting pool at first. This meant pivoting our keyword strategy to open the pool up, which was stuck in ‘inactive’, encouraging Google to qualify our ads to the volumes of people correctly searching the ad that was not showing up.

Meanwhile, to increase the pool, we needed to create momentum. So we enlisted our influencers to engage the social community and talk directly to the punters, encouraging them to continue searching and providing clues.

Once the ads became live, we all took a big breath out, and we saw the numbers take off! From a technical standpoint, one of the most pivotal parts of the campaign was the winning page being protected and ensuring the experience for punters wasn’t ruined by any cheaters. Not only did we need the winning site to be protected, but we also needed it to be found by people who watched the clues and searched the correct search terms. Even further, how would we determine who the first winner of the day would be, and what would their consumer journey look like?

This roadblock saw us engaging the brainiest of the brainiest at CHEP. What it resulted in was the creation of ten unique codes, which were hidden in the final YouTube pre-roll ad, retargeting the pool of eligible punters who had successfully completed the journey. This was another example of where the human intellect was smarter than automation, where we had to manually update the daily code visible on the pre-roll ad and manually review the timestamps of all the daily entrants. We could go on, but we’ll save you. 

LBB> How did CHEP Network collaborate with Samsung and other production partners to bring the campaign to life?

Will> The mechanics behind Flipvertising had never been done before, and we only had 8 weeks from landing the idea to be live in the market, so we needed a tight group of collaborators to work together and make it a reality. We couldn’t have pulled it off without our CHEP teams partnering together across Media, Technology, Data, Creative, Experience and Social, along with production partner The Sweetshop, who made the hilarious films, Google’s local and global teams who helped us crack their own algorithm, the notable influencers who helped us cut through, plus of course Samsung Marketing, Online and Legal teams. All of these were amazing to work with through the twists and turns that led us to the final campaign we took to market. 

LBB> Were there any specific social media platforms or influencers involved in the campaign? If so, how did they contribute to its success?

Joe> We knew we needed to create a natural groundswell when Flipvertising launched, and influencers played a key role. We recruited a broad range of Gen Z creators who helped us reach people interested in gaming, tech, and internet culture. All creators had a strong Australian Gen Z following and a strong engagement rate. Still, most importantly, they were trusted, familiar faces that could confidently explain the mechanics of the hunt and get people searching for the first clue.

LBB> What were the key creative elements or tactics used in the Flipvertising campaign to engage the target audience?

Will> Based on our research, we know this audience hates ads. They’re savvy enough to spot sponsored posts. Furthermore, our study showed us that when it comes to Samsung product launches, Aussies are better influenced by real people creating their own content and reviews, so we wanted to drive our ad-wary audience to all the great content that was already out there without feeling like they were clumsily being served paid-for content. 

We knew that if we wanted to cut through the clutter and capture their attention, we would need to approach them unexpectedly. It was necessary for the launch of Flipvertising to feel as though it was found and not formally announced. To ensure we would create noise off the back of the influencer posts, we heavily amplified a ‘you caught us’ style announcement film which was made up of a compilation of the influencer content which provided a clue to the first search term. In terms of how the budget was split, only a small amount of the total media spend was allocated towards the Google Ads retargeting activity, it was heavily weighted towards driving noise through our influencers and amplification activity. 

LBB> Finally, can you share any interesting or memorable anecdotes from the campaign’s development or execution process?

Joe> Watching the endless stream of social comments come in was always a bit of fun. Seeing people trying to devise ways to cheat the system entirely or reading comments from people who were sure they had it figured out when they most certainly hadn’t. I’d say just about everyone in the agency was fielding text messages from friends asking what phrases they should be Googling, asking why they haven’t seen the ad yet, or just telling us they think it might be broken since they haven’t won. It wasn’t broken. They jus