Samsung made Gen Z hunt for the ad instead of avoiding it

Samsung's newest foldable, the Galaxy Flip4, had to break through to Australia's Gen Z — the cohort most likely to use an ad-blocker and to write off anything that feels 'salesy'.

Instead of buying more reach, CHEP Network flipped targeted advertising. It seeded humorous videos with clues; viewers had to search three specific terms to enter a retargeting pool, and whoever watched all three films was served an 'impossible to be targeted by' pre-roll that contained a hidden Galaxy Flip4.

The payoff was measurable: 185,400 unique searches on just $500k of media, 41% higher search interest than the far-better-funded global Unpacked launch, the top trending Flip4 search, and a 32% week-on-week lift in Flip4 sales. It became a winner at Caples and a One Show / Cannes-recognised idea.

Make people seek the targeted ad

The audience had to opt in, so the ad felt earned rather than imposed.

Searches took viewers through a trail of genuine fan content, so the message reached them as discovery, not interruption.

People engineered their own algorithm into showing Samsung, which is exactly the behaviour the target already cares about.

The tiny, intentional targeting pool made being 'targeted' a scarce prize, which drove talk.

The hardest audience to reach isn't reached louder — it's reached by letting them opt in. Flip the funnel so being targeted is the prize, and the ad becomes a game people play.

'Flipvertising' became a standard reference for inverting ad targeting: it won a Caples Digital award, a One Show / ONE Asia Creative Use of Data honour and a Cannes Grand Prix in Social & Influencer, and is cited as an early example of treating an algorithm as a creative medium.