PayPal is back with a follow-up campaign featuring Will Ferrell and another legendary Fleetwood Mac track to convince consumers that with PayPal, they can “Pay Their Own Way.”
The sequel to last year’s smash hit “Everywhere,” created by Havas Worldwide, riffs on another Fleetwood Mac classic—“Rumours”—to showcase PayPal’s flexible payment options and innovative features with Ferrell’s signature comedic style.
The campaign debuted during the NBA Playoffs and is supported by an expansive multimedia strategy that spans TV, digital, social media, and podcast integrations.
Here’s what iSpot’s Creative Assessment platform revealed on actual viewer response to the campaign.
The Details:
- The :30 “The Great PayPal Checkout” touting the $10M giveaway was a bonafide hit with American viewers. The spot easily outpaced mobile payment one-year benchmarks in every performance area:
- Moreover, an impressive 65% of consumers indicated they were more likely to consider PayPal after seeing this creative, leading other spots in the campaign as well as the normative 43% average (+22 pts).
- The long-form “Pay Your Own Way” was also successfully persuasive, but to a lesser extent (+6 pts vs norm).
- The Information on the new (Change) promotion was highly Relevant to viewers, with Will Ferrell delivering excellent breakthrough (the latter also achieved by the anthem :60).
- Moreover, an impressive 65% of consumers indicated they were more likely to consider PayPal after seeing this creative, leading other spots in the campaign as well as the normative 43% average (+22 pts).
- Beyond the promotional spot, the :60 “Pay Your Own Way” slightly trailed several ads in the earlier “Pay Everywhere” campaign as well as a recent Venmo :15 (highlighting brands accepting Venmo payments) and a CashApp spot touting 2-factor authentication:
- PayPal’s new :60 was more convincing than an Apple Pay :15 and a CashApp ad on overdraft protection.
- “The Great PayPal Checkout” delivered humor and information without Ferrell’s singing, which has sparked some irritation in a portion of viewers of other ads featuring the celebrity:
- Viewer comments on the spot reflect great interest in the promotion as well as strong recognition and approval of Ferrell across many viewers.
Sample comments on “The Great PayPal Checkout” :30
“I think it’s very effective. I was paying attention right away because Will Ferrell was introduced immediately. I like him as a personality, and I wanted to know where the ad was going. I use PayPal regularly, so I also tuned in for the message, which was information that I’m now glad to know.”
Female 36-49
“The ad has an engaging plot without being distracting from the message of the advertisement. And the wording and shortness of the ad makes it memorable.”
Male 21-35
“Will Ferrell is a comedy actor I enjoy so I paid attention throughout the whole ad. I already shop online so it was interesting to think of paying with PayPal and winning some money.”
Female 36-49
“The main character tended to be very obnoxious. And I would not watch this commercial more than maybe once. However, the commercial did keep me engaged on some things that the product offered that I did not know before.”
Male 50+
“It was amusing and it was informative to a brand I use regularly. I was not aware of the offer until I saw this video and it made me laugh at the end.”
Female 50+
“I think the next time I go to the store, which is later today, I will be using PayPal to check out so I can qualify for the $10 million prize.”
Female 36-49
“Will Ferrell is awesome. Funny bit at the end. I would love to win. I didn’t know PayPal was doing this.”
Male 36-49
- “Get Ready,” in contrast, significantly underperformed the brand’s Optimal Profile on several key KPI ‘s driving brand intent:
- Modeling of the past three years of PayPal ads identified the Relevance and Information KPI’s as having the most distinguishing influence on consumer intent. Likeability, Attention, and Change contributed at a lesser extent (the Optimal Profile on the graph below).
- This ad’s significant miss against Optimal on Information and Change as well as Relevance suggests that the spot would not be expected to encourage higher consideration vs other brand ads (which consumer testing has confirmed).
- This model can be employed with all live and/or pretested creative to identify the highest potential spots in any campaign by the brand before going on air.
- Armed with this information on each of PayPal’s creatives, the media team is also empowered to allocate budget accordingly to optimize business results.
- Note that other brands will have their own unique Optimal profiles.
- Modeling of the past three years of PayPal ads identified the Relevance and Information KPI’s as having the most distinguishing influence on consumer intent. Likeability, Attention, and Change contributed at a lesser extent (the Optimal Profile on the graph below).
- iSpot media measurement reports an appropriate favoring of the :30 “The Great PayPal Checkout” in national linear activity (as well as streaming) for the two weeks ending 4/26/25:
- Based on the results reported above, it is recommended that this spot as well as the :60 “Pay Your Own Way” continue to be favored over “Get Ready.”
- The :30 “Pay Your Own Way” can also be evaluated.
- Based on the results reported above, it is recommended that this spot as well as the :60 “Pay Your Own Way” continue to be favored over “Get Ready.”
- Second-by-second trace shows the strong engagement achieved by many of the new “Pay Your Own Way” spots; however, resonance for “Get Ready” showed some struggle regardless of age/gender:
Advertisers need to identify the creative that will drive business outcomes and ensure that in-market execution aligns against the highest potential ads.
Schedule a demo to find out how your brand can partner with iSpot to quickly solve both challenges simultaneously, delivering high-performing creative while boosting the effectiveness of planning and in-market execution to achieve—and outperform—campaign objectives.
Creative Agency: Havas Worldwide