A 4pm test that became their best ad

A creator filled a bottle with ice at 8am and checked it at 4pm on a beach. That one plain test now drives most of Tidewell's paid revenue.

Revenue from paid

+62%

Over 3 months

Past results, not a promise.

Client

Tidewell

Insulated bottles

Channels

YouTube, Meta

Monthly spend

$54k

The brief

Tidewell sells a $42 insulated bottle in five colors, in a category where every brand claims "24 hours cold." Their ads were bright lifestyle edits that looked great and said nothing new. YouTube was their biggest channel by spend, mostly on 30-second pre-roll that people skipped.

The question for us: what would make someone believe the claim everyone makes?

What we made

Proof, filmed as plainly as possible. We sent bottles to six creators with one instruction: fill it with ice in the morning, take it somewhere hot, open it at 4pm on camera. No script beyond that. The best one, a beach day in Galveston, opens on the ice rattling at 4:02pm. "Still cold at 4pm. We checked." became the line on every size we cut from it.

On YouTube, the 4pm test held viewers past the skip button twice as often as the old ads. We cut it into 6-second bumpers, 15s and a 45-second version for search viewers, then moved it to Meta, where it works almost as well. Revenue from paid is up 62% in three months on 20% more spend.

What didn’t work

A tidy studio ad comparing cup-holder fits ("Fits every cup holder") was useful information and terrible advertising: lowest hold rate of the quarter. A 24-hour time-lapse of ice melting sounded fun and was 40 seconds too long. We kept the 4pm idea and dropped everything that needed explaining.