Like automotive ads before them, spots for tech gadgets follow a familiar formula: beautiful close-ups of clean lines and metallic surfaces, with superimposed text that highlights various features. Effective, if not entertaining. So when it was tasked with creating the campaign for Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 Series tablet, creative agency BBH USA wanted to try a new approach to fulfilling the spec-heavy brief.

“Could we make a story so that this is something people [who] aren’t just hardcore tech fans want to watch?” said Ryan Paulson, group creative director at the agency.

The resulting campaign, “See Great. Be Great,” features a long-form video that, across its nearly four-minute runtime, does just that. Running on social channels and in a more traditional 30-second version, “The Interns” follows two low-level employees at an ad agency who — on the hunt for leftover snacks — take it upon themselves to generate ideas for a Samsung tablet ad, bringing to life a series of feature-focused concepts that are each more outlandish than the last. 

“[The creative team] realized that so much of our lives are trying to get inspiration and move into creation,” Paulson said. “I know as an intern, I just came up with as many bad ideas as I could. I knew they were bad, but the only chance I had was to go for as many ideas as I could… The point is to generate a lot of them and hopefully stumble onto something great.”

After getting buy-in from Samsung on the metatextual approach, BBH was challenged with building a story structure that could accommodate the range of features of the Tab S9, from its gaming-ready processing power to the flexibility of the S pen. 

In the ad, device features serve as jumping-off points for referencing familiar genres. For example, one intern has an idea to promote the S pen by drawing a superhero comic. At other times, one idea begets another: The Tab S9’s true black screen would be good for a horror movie, but its vibrant color displays are more suited to a sitcom — disparate concepts that are combined in the ad as a horror sitcom reminiscent of the viral classic “Too Many Cooks.”

“The interns figuring out the brief as they go [is something] anyone in a creative industry or advertising can relate to,” Paulson said. “Having to fit all those things made it better in a weird way — the challenge of how you have to hit all these parts.”

Gen Z insights

The interns in the spot are members of Gen Z — the same cohort that Samsung is courting with the campaign. For the effort, BBH leaned into insights uncovered by its strategy team that work against stereotypes about the generation, like how its members are maligned for spending too much time on screens (which, coincidentally, is not a problem for a company selling screens).

“They’re watching things, but they’re not just passively watching. They’re using them as inspiration for other things,” Paulson explained.

Focusing on a cohort known as the “creator generation” allowed Samsung to acknowledge its target audience’s needs. Gen Z isn’t just watching movies, they’re thinking up their own short film ideas on the side; they’re not just anime fans, they’re also working on their own graphic novels. 

“It’s a way of identifying with Gen Z as opposed to [being] preachy,” Paulson said.

Another insight about Gen Z that informed the ad was the call by social media channels and researchers for shorter and shorter ads, some running just a few seconds. The implication is that screen-addled Gen Zers don’t have the attention span for longer ads, which BBH wanted to push against.

“It’s a misinterpretation. Maybe we’re just not making enough great stories that people want to watch, because they will watch a 3:50 minute ad about specs if you have a great story,” Paulson said.

To his point, “The Interns” has notched nearly 16 million YouTube views since its debut on July 29. Both brand and agency are pleased with the engagement, which extends into the YouTube comments.

“The first one is someone saying, ‘I think this is the first time I’ve actually watched a whole spec ad for a tech product,’ which is great,” Paulson said. “It’s not just the people who are interested in reading a list of specs, it’s people who actually find it entertaining.”