Young adults spend a lot of time on the Internet and are bombarded by pre-roll ads of all kinds, impatiently waiting for the countdown to end so they can finally click the skip ad button. To grab their attention and stand out from the crowd, we created a pre-roll ad that depicts an embarrassing situation they know only too well.

The concept puts the viewer in the passenger’s seat and makes them sit through an uncomfortable monologue from an annoying dad to his daughter. After a few awkward seconds, the viewer can choose to skip the ad by clicking a modified skip ad button that reads, “Skip Dad”. When the viewer clicks our Skip Dad button, instead of skipping the ad altogether, they end up being exposed to the solution for how to skip their own dad’s annoying conversations: getting their own ride.

This piece was specially designed for the web. Created for a specific media—pre-roll—it was used in a fun new way that maximized its impact. To reach our target effectively, we broadcast this pre-roll ad on a variety of dedicated websites for young adults other than YouTube, in Quebec’s English market.

The strength of this idea lies in the fact that, even when our young target audience chose to click on the button to end the ad, 100% of them were exposed to the final offer. The ad generated more than 463,000 engagements in Quebec’s English market in just three months. And the end result was a click-through rate six times higher than the automotive industry average.