Beyond the Skip Button

How Participation is Revolutionizing Marketing

The skip button changed everything.

Not just because it lets people avoid ads. But because it reveals a truth marketers have been avoiding: nobody wants to be interrupted.

The statistics tell a compelling story:

• 65% of online video ads are skipped almost immediately
• 99% of Gen Z skips ads when given the chance
• As of 2024, approximately 52% of Americans use an ad blocker, a significant increase from 34% in 2022

This isn't about technology. It's about respect.

You see, there has always been a great divide. On one side: marketers desperate for attention. On the other: humans who value their time.

Traditional marketing is a monologue in an age that demands dialogue.

Today's consumers—particularly Gen Z and Millennials—have grown up in an era where content is abundant, personalized, and on-demand. They don't reject advertising because they reject brands; they reject being treated as passive recipients in a world where participation is the norm.

From Interruption to Invitation

Skip the interruption, not the connection. When consumers hit "skip," they're not rejecting your brand—they're rejecting your monologue. In order to truly connect and enter an authentic relationship with consumers these days, brands must move primarily from interruptive marketing to inviting brand participation. The most successful brands aren't fighting this shift—they're embracing it and redefining what marketing means in a participation-driven economy.

At The Many, we've developed proven strategies that transform passive advertising into active brand participation. Here's how we're helping brands win in the skip-button era:

Creating Personalized Brand Experiences at Scale

For eBay, we didn't create ads about sneakers. We created a journey of self-discovery through sneakers and invited Gen Z to participate.

Recognizing that Gen Z values personalization and finding themselves in their purchases, we highlighted eBay's year-search feature to create a personalized sneaker discovery experience. Curating iconic sneaker silhouettes from the years Gen Z was born, we partnered with illustrators to build a unique discovery experience where participants could find their birth-year kicks creating almost a blended historical/horoscope experience for sneakerheads.

Sure, we could have simply advertised the platform's vast inventory. But by creating a personalized journey designed to ensure participants felt both seen and understood, we were able to drive meaningful brand participation.

The short campaign generated an impressive 72 million total video plays, drove 352,000 total engagements, and added 22,000 new followers to eBay's social channels, resulting in a significant ROI for the brand.

Key takeaway: If the shoe fits, share it! Personalization isn't just knowing who your audience is—it's letting them discover who they are through your brand.

Creating Playful Participation Opportunities

Panda Express faced a challenge: how do you teach Lunar New Year traditions to the uninitiated?

Our answer: Not with a lecture. With a game.

Play is roughly defined in research literature as a freely chosen, personally directed, and intrinsically motivated activity—which is exactly the type of brand participation we are most passionate about inviting. With Americans spending more time on leisure activities than in the past, play is the perfect way to create brand experiences that inherently drive up time spent with the brand generating more brand relevance, trust, and purchases.

Our "Good Fortune Scratcher" campaign demonstrates the power of playful participation. We developed a web-based lottery scratcher game that gamified education about the holiday and featured unique prizes that changed over the six-week campaign period. Players could learn about Lunar New Year traditions while scratching virtual tickets to win real-world rewards and discounts. In order to drive repeat play, we also switched up the promotions connected to playing as well as the game itself ensuring that even if you played every day, it was never a dull experience.

This playful approach transformed what could have been standard promotional messaging into an interactive cultural experience and the results were extraordinary:

• Over 500,000 redemption codes were redeemed through the activation
• The campaign drove a $10 million increase in Family Meal sales
• Most impressively, it generated 10x sales growth year-over-year

Key takeaway: All work and no play makes Jack a dull brand. When you turn marketing into a game, everyone wins—especially your bottom line.

Meaningfully Connecting Fan Communities with Brand Narratives

Jin from BTS and Jin Ramen share more than a name. They share fans.

Creating immersive brand experiences doesn't always require physical spaces. At The Many, we demonstrated this with our "Jinjja Love Jin Ramen" campaign for Otoki's Jin Ramen. ("Jinjja" means "really" in Korean, creating a playful wordplay that resonated with fans.)

Recognizing the power of the "hallyu" (Korean wave) in American culture, we created an unexpected narrative connection between two beloved Korean exports. We developed a creative "love story" between Jin from the Kpop sensation BTS and Jin Ramen and invited consumers to participate in the ultimate "love triangle."

Fans of Jin were blown away and quickly became fans of Jin Ramen. In just the first 24 hours of going live, the campaign generated 1.2 million impressions, 356k views, 251K engagements, and 27K shares. This engagement translated into substantial sales growth for Jin Ramen in the U.S. market.
More fun than the raw numbers were the comments like "The only collab that makes my heart and stomach full," "Thank you Otoki for giving us our dream to see Actor Jin! Jinjja we love Jin Ramen," and "NEVER CRAVED RAMEN MORE IN MY LIFE."

This integrated global campaign made use of many standard elements in traditional marketing including a hero video, social assets, OOH, and creator collaborations. But by tapping into the intense fandom of BTS while highlighting the intense craveable qualities of Jin Ramen in a manner that authentically reflected the community's love of K-Dramas and inviting fans to participate in the "love triangle" it transcended traditional advertising. Our campaign didn't interrupt culture—it became part of it.

Key takeaway: Fan + Brand = BFFs forever. When you speak the language of fandom, you don't just reach consumers—you create superfans who crave your brand.

From Attention to Participation

In a world where anything can be skipped, blocked, or ignored, the only winning strategy is creating something no one wants to skip. We've moved from the attention economy to the participation economy.

As we look to the future, one thing is clear: the brands that thrive won't be those that find clever new ways to interrupt consumers. Success will belong to those who fundamentally reimagine their relationship with their audience—moving from a model of persuasion to one of participation.

The question isn't "How do we get people to see our message?" but rather "How do we create something people want to be part of?"

Because in the age of the skip button, participation isn't just a marketing strategy—it's the only sustainable path forward.

Take action now: Ready to transform your marketing approach? Contact The Many to discover how we can help your brand thrive in the participation economy.