What do you get when you mix a first-time advertiser and an irreverent sensibility from both a brand and its production partner? Woot! and production company The New Blank have the answer in Woot!’s YouTube ads that have earned over 20 million views to date.

“At first we were in full-on head scratching mode about how to do something interesting with a million constraints,” admitted The New Blank’s Bobby Hougham. “After digging into the brand, listening to the thoughts floating around and a fair amount of brainstorming, we came up with an idea that would actually be augmented by a lo-fi production solution.”

“Honestly, we weren’t sure of how it would turn out - we just had an idea and put the faith in both the script and the production team. But now that they’re successful, I’m going to say we knew it all along,” deadpans Woot!’s Kirk Anderson.

The spots are a glimpse at what stretching the budget can do to the success (and humour) of a project. Woot’s own writer Matt Klan stars in the series of spots that lift the curtain, literally, on the concept of a slick-looking ad campaign. 

“It was a ton of fun to be the face of Woot!, even if it meant taking a lot of pratfalls,” explains Matt. “Thankfully we had some money for knee pads, and someone brought in their kid’s gym mat to land on.”

To keep the budget tight, The New Blank pondered locations that included Hougham’s own kitchen and The New Blank’s parking garage, ultimately using a vacant space in a former bookstore downtown. There, Woot! and TNB came together and collaborated as a tight-knit team (but at a safe distance, given the times). 

The end result is a quirky campaign that puts a clever spin on having to watch at least five seconds of a pre-roll ad. “It’s great to be able to drive brand awareness, but even better to actually make people laugh,” remarked Arsalan Ahmed, chief marketing officer at Woot! “Now we have to come up with the next thing.”