LIFELIVE

TitleLIFELIVE
BrandSAMSUNG
Product / ServiceGEAR VR
CategoryA06. Events & Experiential (incl. stunts)
EntrantLEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company LEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Advertising Agency LEO BURNETT SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Media Agency STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA
PR Agency EDELMAN Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production Company RAPID VR Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Andy Dilallo Leo Burnett Sydney Chief Creative Officer
Mark Tutssel Leo Burnett Chicago Global Chief Creative Officer
Vince Lagana Leo Burnett Sydney Art Director
Grant Mcaloon Leo Burnett Sydney Copywriter
Jeremy Devilliers Leo Burnett Sydney Executive Print Producer
Bruno Nakano Leo Burnett Sydney Art Director
Jason Young Leo Burnett Sydney Typographer
Amanda Quested Leo Burnett Sydney Client Service Director
Laura Dowling/Grace Kluver Leo Burnett Sydney Account Management
Christopher Baron Leo Burnett Sydney Director/Editor
Matthew Gain Edelman PR Chief Operating Officer
Carla Webb Edelman PR Associate Director
Susannah DiLallo Rapid VR Executive Producer
Dave Klaiber Rapid VR Director - Perth
Taylor Steele Rapid VR VR Video Director
Kodaline Band Band
Andrew Stevenson We Love Jam Sound Design
Earle Dresner Rapid VR DOP
Ben Nott Rapid VR DOP
Kate Spencer / Mathew Wu Edelmen Acct Mgmt / Tech

The Campaign

An Australian father was coming to terms with missing the birth of his third child due to work commitments in a remote part of Australia. Coincidentally, Samsung was looking for ways to illustrate the potential applications of virtual reality (VR) technology, using its newly released headset. To show what might be possible, Samsung used VR to enable the father to watch the birth of his son live, from 4,000 kilometres away. We had to ensure this globally relevant story captured attention all over the world. We also had to ensure that this wasn’t just a generic VR story. Samsung had to be intrinsically linked. To do this we created a bespoke piece of content. The story was packaged up much like a lifestyle TV news piece. It ensured Samsung was intrinsically linked. Our job then was to ensure media didn’t simply report on the news of the first VR birth, but instead embedded our pre-packaged story. With the objective to drive positive sentiment and maximum views of the video on YouTube, we tapped into Australian journalists knowing that if this had momentum and strong pick up in the home market it would stand a better chance gaining international attention. The outcome was a total of more than 12 million YouTube views (without paid support) driven entirely by PR, with over 400 media articles, and 100% key message cut-through.

The Brief

The possibilities of technology are limitless, but they can also be morally confronting. The goal was to show as many people as possible both in Australia and globally that technology can solve real life problems, in a way that is inspiring and rewarding. To ensure people felt this way when they viewed the video, we needed to make sure the media felt the same way. A detailed media landscape audit was conducted to determine which outlets and contacts would spread the story in a positive way to relevant audiences.

Results

• Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) or PR Cost: $10,363,373 (how much the news/media coverage would have cost if it were advertising space) • Total potential campaign reach (via news media only): over 7 billion people reached globally • Total video views across all platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube): 15,682,861 • Total minutes watched: 37,331,966 • Key message penetration was 100% throughout all media coverage • 95% of coverage was favourable to Samsung and the project • 89% of plays occurring on embedded players with SFGlobe delivering 30% of these views

Execution

The news broke with an exclusive on Australia’s highest-rated national news bulletin and associated social channels. Additional exclusives organised under embargo continued, with Australian and global television, online, print and radio news, as well as high traffic consumer technology and mummy bloggers. With the video on YouTube, blogs were particularly important. An exclusive global partnership with Mashable ensured the news went viral quickly, with over 3,000 shares in a matter of minutes. An exclusive with Australia’s most popular lifestyle blog, Mamamia, was also essential as the website can be quite critical of trivial stories. This momentum ensured views grew overnight into the millions. Our second round of coverage continued, with Australian breakfast TV running on Monday morning, followed by additional online news and blogs. With momentum in Australia, we hit the UK and US media, securing stories internationally as the views on the video grew to over 10 million.

The Situation

Samsung is a company that believes technology can solve communication problems as it bridges the tyranny of distance. People are also sceptical about this from a moral perspective – “technology cannot take the place of real life moments.” Our challenge was to craft an approach to media that focussed on the positive emotion of the story, without saying it was better than the ‘real life’ experience of being there. This was important because negativity breeds negativity – was Samsung exploiting the family? Why wasn’t the father there? Was it cruel to place the father in this simulated experience?

The Strategy

To achieve our goals of reaching a mass audience in Australia and internationally we employed a two-pronged approach. This combined the mass penetration of traditional media with content targeting the twitteratti and other online influencers via tech and mummy blogs. We approached the social media editors of traditional media as well as the usual general news journalists. This ensured that traditional print and broadcast stories were complemented with content for Facebook and Twitter. By undertaking this approach we generated press articles and news segments but also had the story going direct to the audience via the powerful social media accounts of the traditional media outlets. For the influencers we targeted international outlets that drive enormous hype online such as Mashable and Reddit. We also targeted mummy bloggers. This drove mass content views, which in turn encouraged international mass media to jump on the story reporting ‘the latest viral video’.