DIVE IN THE DESERT

TitleDIVE IN THE DESERT
BrandSAMSUNG
Product / ServiceGEAR VR
CategoryA04. Targeted Ambient Media: Large Scale
EntrantLEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company LEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Advertising Agency LEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Production Company RAPID VR Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production Company 2 THE POOL COLLECTIVE Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production Company 3 WE LOVE JAM Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Andy Dilallo Leo Burnett Sydney Chief Creative Officer
Kieran Ots/Zaid Al-Asady Leo Burnett Sydney Creative Director
Kieran Ots/Zaid Al-Asady Leo Burnett Sydney Copywriter/Art Director
Misha Mcdonald/Sharon Edmondston Leo Burnett Sydney Creative Group Head
Jeremy Devilliers Leo Burnett Sydney Operations Director
Amanda Quested Leo Burnett Sydney Client Service Director
Laura Dowling/Grace Kluver Leo Burnett Sydney Account Management
Laurent Marcus Leo Burnett Sydney Integrated Producer
Farhan Amjad Leo Burnett Sydney Digital Developer
Taylor Steele Rapid VR VR Video Director
Susannah DiLallo Rapid VR Executive Producer
Rita Gagliardi Rapid VR Producer
Christopher Ireland The Pool Collective Director

The Brief

When it comes to Samsung’s Gear VR, experience is everything. While a standard product ad could announce a new technology like this, it can’t communicate what the experience of using the Gear VR really feels like. We needed to find an interesting and creative way to demonstrate just how powerful this experience can be – to give everyday Australians a direct, personal experience with the Gear VR that we could also ultimately share with a wider audience. To achieve this, we built the first scuba store in Alice Springs, Central Australia – right in the middle of the desert. Using the Gear VR and a bespoke 360 degree film, visitors to the store were invited to slip beneath the waves and enter another world – the home of the great white shark. This not only created an incredible, one-to-one experience for visitors to the store, it also generated an intriguing piece of online content that shared this unusual story with a much wider audience.

Creative Execution

The Dive Store opened its doors in Alice Springs, Central Australia, in October 2014. It was promoted through flyers, local radio and press, signage and event staff, while the out-of-place shopfront itself drew in curious locals and tourists. Visitors to the store were then asked if they were interested in taking a dive, and were then given the opportunity to try out the Gear VR shark dive experience for themselves. The store was open for a single day, with the Gear VR used heavily across an eight-hour period, giving us the opportunity to capture a wealth of authentic reactions to the Shark Dive. We then took these individual experiences and turned our unusual story into an engaging and highly sharable piece of online content.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Our target was young-minded smartphone owners who are early to mid adopters of technology – both current Samsung customers, and owners of competitor brands. They’re heavy users of online media, which constantly exposes them to remarkable content and amazing technology every day. To be relevant to them, this experience needed to be disruptive enough to stand out amongst the clutter, while convincing them that this device was something that they genuinely wanted for themselves. But from a client perspective, this experience needed to do more than just stand out. It had to prove that this product could offer people a unique, remarkable and desirable experience, unlike anything they had encountered before.

Results

On the day of the event we had a constant flow of visitors to the store, allowing us to offer them a direct experience of the Gear VR. But we also wanted to share their experience with the world, and the unique nature of this event has helped it reach a much larger audience. To date, a film of the event has been watched more than 1.8 million times in 194 countries, and shared more than 14,000 times, proving that the content is truly an experience that people want to share. The Shark Dive has now also toured across Australia, been featured on TV shows, at product launches and at other local events, offering hundreds of Australians a one-to-one opportunity to get up close and personal with a great white, and experience the magic of VR for themselves. And this activity has had a genuine impact on sales too, with the Gear VR selling out a month after launch.