The Campaign

Launching Samsung’s Galaxy S9 by hijacking Australia’s most iconic face. The idea was to launch Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and its new AR emoji, by giving Australian’s the once in a lifetime opportunity to see their AR emoji face on Australia’s most famous face – Luna Park. The immersive, interactive installation saw Australians create their AR emoji on the Galaxy S9, then see it projected in real time onto the face of Luna Park, in front of a packed Sydney Harbour during Vivid – Australia’s biggest festival of light.

The Brief

Overall $2,350,000 Breakdown: End-to-end production for Sydney Opera House site $1,400,000 End-to-end production for Luna Park site $750,000 Media $200,000

Creative Execution

The installation was a massive undertaking, with two bespoke builds implemented on two of Sydney’s most famous, and heavily regulated sites. The Opera House forecourt, for the emoji creation area. And the iconic Luna Park façade. While also partnering with Vivid, Australia’s largest festival – that attracts over 2.4 million people every year. With just 10 weeks from briefing production, to going live, the timings where tight. It included two large physical builds, as well as multiple systems to project, capture and process emojis in real-time.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

- “Samsung Australia’s most successful activation.” Jamie Skaltsounis, Samsung Australia - “The Galaxy S9s highest sales period.” Jamie Skaltsounis, Samsung Australia - 7 million social media impressions - 2 million OOH impressions - 10 million earned media impressions, including news coverage across major TV networks - 17,000 Luna Park facelifts - Average dwell time with experience 48 minutes - Conversion rate passersby to engaged guests: 17% vs. target 5%.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Samsung was launching their new Galaxy S9 smartphone. The coolest feature: AR emojis; proprietary face-mapping software allowing users to communicate via their own unique animated avatar. So, to get the feature, and the phone in Australia’s hands, we created a live installation to infiltrate Vivid, Australia’s largest festival of light and ideas. As part of the brand experience, people created their AR emoji, then saw it projected in real-time, onto Australia’s most iconic face – Luna Park.

Target audience: Samsung aims to recruit all smartphone users, but our bullseye was ‘progressive lifestylers’. Those who see experiences as a way to live life to fullest and as a part of who they are and the stories they share. Insight: smartphones are a canvas for self-expression. And emoji’s are the new shortcut for this storytelling. Strategy: Show how the Galaxy S9 inspires and enables storytelling with AR emojis, through a phone-in-hand experience that changes the brand perception of those partaking, that’s big enough and visible enough to capture the attention and imagination of all Australians. To excite ‘progressive lifestylers’, we followed three strategic principles: - Add incremental value to Vivid, don’t just show up. - Don’t be a one-of-many experience, be a once-in-a-lifetime - Put features at the heart of the idea, but the consumer in the soul of it.