An ad inside an ad
inside an ad.

Samsung needed a reason to buy a super-big QLED that was not another spec sheet. Premium television buyers already cared about sports, games, and movies. Netflix’s 6 Underground was the holiday premiere. Reynolds, the film’s star and the owner of Aviation Gin, was the person who could hold all three brands in the same joke without the spot falling apart.

adam&eveDDB wrote a fourth-wall gag: Reynolds starts selling the QLED as the way to watch 6 Underground, an Aviation Gin mid-roll hijacks the screen, and a fictional director calls cut. Unicorn Studios produced the film, with Jy-Ah Min producing. Bryan Rowland directed. The television stays in frame for the entire spot, so the product is never abandoned for the punchline.

The director’s cut ran online. A 30-second cut aired during NBA games, with 15-second cuts and social versions around it. Campaign Brief reported more than 1.5 million views on Twitter the night it launched. Fast Company called it “the turducken of advertising.” The Drum, Shots, and other trade press treated the nested-ad structure as a new form of celebrity endorsement, and as proof that a Samsung QLED was the screen for Netflix’s biggest premieres.