Matt Lindley, Google And The Four-Hour Ad: An Ideasicle Expert Profile
Introducing our newest Ideasicle Expert:
Matt Lindley.
I’ve known Matt for nearly 20 years and have been after him to be an Expert here since I launched in 2010. While at Arnold Worldwide, we pitched and won Vonage, Progressive Insurance, and the RadioShack business, the latter being the largest win in New England history at the time. I always wanted Matt on the pitch team because he has this uncanny super power to disarm his audience with charm, creativity, and, most importantly, ideas.
Since Arnold, Matt spent many valuable years entrenched within the Google/YouTube technosphere. Which brings us to his story about the four-hour ad. Over to you, Matt.
So Google.
True the smoothies are free. And generally excellent. There are nap pods. And the best sea scallops I’ve ever had were served on a random Wednesday in a Google 'cafeteria.’
True too the challenge, like everywhere else, is to connect the right data with the right creative insight. Really too many/much of both in general. And stunning how much goes off the rails if either side loses context in their excitement. That was the idea of Unskippable Labs, a group founded at Google to collect and take advantage of the data strewn about. We were two, then 30, then a couple hundred a couple years later, touching about $1.5 billion worth of business. It’s now called Google Creative Works.
A sample of the thinking from the automotive vertical.
Three disparate data points on a live dashboard.
People who buy cars are watching longer and longer videos on YouTube. Like 30 minutes long. Features, running footage and testimonials. And dealer location-based beacons confirm, those folks are then walking into dealerships;
YouTube became always-on or ‘ambient’ during Covid. Meaning everyone figured out how to put YouTube on their TV and just left it on - for hours. So we knew where people spent most of their time. Globally, World Cup Soccer reruns, concerts, races of every conceivable kind, cartoons – and LoFi (yeah, I didn’t know either).
LoFi, a sort of imperfect, ambient-style music, has a massive but self proclaimed ‘ad-hater’ audience. Right age/mindset for the first time car buyer, but sick of car ads. Wary of anything and everything that feels/looks/smells disingenuous.
Solution.
A four-hour, low-key, lofi-fueled, animated ‘ad.’ 18 million views, tens of thousands lasting for hours, site and dealer visits and accolades from client and consumer alike. Here it is for reference (you don’t need to watch the whole thing):
So a four hour ad? Yeah. Obviously it didn’t start there. But the data was proof, the creative listened and was well-executed and the context was the kicker - it was easy to soak it all in.
So more of that please.
And now we have him at Ideasicle X.
Finally! I honestly can’t wait to see what he comes up with for our customers. As with all of the Ideasicle Experts, subscribers can recruit Matt and the rest of the team of four for their next project through the Ideasicle X web application.
Welcome to the ranks, Matt!
Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post.