SAMSUNG SERIES 9

TitleSAMSUNG SERIES 9
BrandTHAI SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS
Product / ServiceSAMSUNG SERIES 9 NOTEBOOK
CategoryA01. Best Fictional Program, Series or Film where a client has successfully created a drama, comedy or miniseries around a product or brand
EntrantSTARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Bangkok, THAILAND
Entrant Company STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Bangkok, THAILAND
Media Agency STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Bangkok, THAILAND
Production Company GMM THAI HUB Bangkok, THAILAND

Credits

Name Company Position
Sophon Sakdaphisit Gth Film Director
Apisit Limwattanapibul Starcom Digital Group Head
Auravadee Ruengsri Vivaki Exchange Managing Director

The Campaign

Use and capabilities of branded content and entertainment is growing at an exponential pace in Thailand, both online and offline. Television integration is very competitive, especially within reality shows such as The Voice and Thailand’s Got Talent. Even with broadcasting regulations in place, much of the decision on content is made between the broadcaster and advertiser. However, the censorship body of the government is closely monitoring to ensure that it does not become too commercialized. This provides an opportunity for brands to move online as there are fewer regulations and much more creative freedom. Consumers are well aware of the increasingly closer ties between media and brands. Brands and their partners must be cognizant of this as consumers will reject too much product placement, information or content. To remain an effective medium and provide a positive user experience, this environment must remain uncluttered.

Results

Samsung is well known in Thailand for its mobile phones and televisions, but it doesn’t receive much consideration in the notebook market. The challenge now is to create interest and position Samsung as a strong player within the marketplace. The Samsung Series Nine is the latest version of Samsung notebooks. It’s a smart notebook which comes with a slim and stylish functionality. With the internet playing an important role in today’s society and entertainment content being the most widely consumed, YouTube series were a trend consumers were paying much attention to. SAMSUNG SERIES 9 has many functions that cannot be explained by conventional media messaging so we choose to talk about its features in the form of a story. We chose "Sophon Sakdaphisit" one of the movie director in Thailand who recently directed the famous thriller movie “Ladda Land” to direct a 3 episode online romantic action series. It’s the story of a man who received a mysterious notebook that can predict the future. He is being chased by a local mafia, but is able to overcome the crisis by using a power of this notebook. Our product played a key role and we were able to blend the three main attributes of luxurious & stylish, ultra-thin & light and bright display into the storyline. Each episode would end with a cliffhanger, leaving the audience in anticipation and a week to speculate with their peers about what would happen next. We launched the trailer online through the product microsite. Offline, we utilized digital video screens within mass transit, office lifts and digital LEDs in CBD. This was then followed by a webisode video being released each week to complete the series. We posed questions to the audience within Facebook and Twitter to keep them talking about what might come next.

We leveraged our owned channels to create a level of “urgency to explore” in-depth product information after viewing an episode of our mini-series and/or interacting with our digital activity. We posed questions to the audience within Facebook and Twitter to keep them talking about what might come next. On-going social discussions were further fueled through product reviews by key influencers such as tech gurus and trend setters and a push to convince and convert through interaction with a game.

The webisodes were viewed over 750k times within a month, doubling our original goal. We recorded over 63k engagements within Facebook at an engagement rate of 1.44% (average is 0.2 – 1%). Even without being able to use TV, we were still able to create a significant uplift for in-store sales on the Samsung Notebook Series 9. We also increase awareness and consideration among consumers with clear product USP. 2,000 units were sold during the first 8 weeks of the campaign, compared to 2011 when Samsung only sold around 2,000 units total for the entire year.