Shortlisted 2021

Luxury & Lifestyle

Brand

Samsung Galaxy Fold 2

Entered by:

Starcom Worldwide

CREDITS:

High Snobiety, The Robb Report

Look again at the Galaxy Fold

The Challenge

First Impressions Are Hard To Shake

We needed to get luxury phone buyers to look again at the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2, doubling sales of Samsung’s most expensive foldable phone.  In 2019 Samsung introduced the world to the Galaxy Fold, the world’s first foldable phone. The revolutionary design redefined what a phone is: a phone when folded, a tablet when opened. At launch, Wired said the Fold ‘breathes new life into phones’.  Unfortunately the highly anticipated launch became been a disaster. Problems with the phone’s hinge led to the launch being postponed. This meant many potential Fold 2 buyers were wary of spending $2,000 on a phone they feared might still be faulty.  This attracted almost as much press attention as the announcement itself. The Fold went on to launch later in 2019, but the momentum had been disrupted.

In 2020 we were tasked to launch the Fold 2. Samsung’s engineering teams had taken the original design even further, adding 5G and enhanced multi-tasking and Flex-mode features. With no other foldable phones making a big impact yet, we could still breathe new life into phones.

To do this, we needed to get these highly discerning luxury phone buyers to look again at the Galaxy Fold.

These consumers see mainstream social media influencers as inauthentic. Instead, they take their cues from ‘super influencers’ – a rare breed of creative entrepreneurs for whom money is no object. These however, had been among the Fold’s harshest critics.

The Creative Solution

Our Brave Play: The Phone Built For Pioneers

We put the Fold to the ultimate test by giving it to these cynical and demanding creative super-influencers. Getting hands on with the Fold made them do such a complete about-turn, that they ended up using it to actually produce their own high end content. This made it clear that the Fold was now the real deal – fault free and the most desirable phone available.  We focused on creating stories of how the Fold 2 unlocks cutting edge design, craftsmanship and creativity, demonstrating how its unique design helps cultural tastemakers stay on top of their game. In the same way that designer Nike sneakers have become a ‘canvas’ for creativity and exclusivity, we decided to would show how the Fold 2 is an essential part of how this audience expresses itself.

To accomplish this we worked with two partners: High Snobiety and The Robb Report. High Snobiety is a streetwear blog covering the latest swag from a hip-hop perspective. The Robb Report meanwhile, is the ultimate destination for high net worth individuals, a luxury-lifestyle magazine featuring the world’s most desirable products.  These are the new wave of luxury media. Together, they’d give their influential followers reasons to look again at The Fold 2.

The Media/Content Amplification Solution

A Perfect Orchestration of Two Partnerships

First, we tackled the quality issues head-on. We kicked off the partnerships by having the staffers of both High Snobiety and The Robb Report interrogate the design of the Fold 2. They celebrated the Fold 2’s ingenuity and high quality through a series of hands-on tear-downs. And, yes, they majored on the hinge, showing how its re-design makes it both innovative and durable.

Second, we worked with super-influencers to show how the Fold 2 helps them unleash their creativity. With High Snobiety, Dominic Ciambrone and Sean Wotherspoon, two pioneering streetwear designers, gave insights into how the Fold has revolutionized their design process. Digital artist Andy Picci meanwhile, turned the Fold’s design into digital paintings that literally transformed the phone into a work of art.

Robb Report editors and influencers used the Fold to create its coverage of their luxury ‘Car of the Year’ show. Finally, heiress, DJ and entrepreneur, Hannah Bronfman, used the Fold 2 to document the start of her journey into parenthood whilst still achieving her creative goals. Her story was published and also adapted to become a co-produced ad campaign that run across Robb Report.

Content from all these stories were converted into editorial features, social media posts and high impact ad placements, building the exposure we wanted with their followers.

The Result

Breathing Life into a New Icon

We smashed our target of doubling Fold sales. Instead, we sold three times more than the previous year. Our two partnerships were crucial in achieving this.

Viewers and followers were highly engaged. Across both partnerships, organic sharing generated 18m impacts, mainly in social media, worth $3.5m in media value.

Intent to purchase a Fold 2 rose by an unprecedented 30% amongst High Snobiety readers and by 20% among Robb Report readers.

They were also much more likely to say that Samsung is shaping the future with the Fold (+29%), that the Fold is a revolutionary product (+24%) and more likely to think the Fold makes Samsung distinctive (+23%).

All of this has helped make Samsung the undisputed leader in foldable phones, breathing life into the category and helping to deliver a 50% overall increase in all phone sales in the third quarter of 2020, despite the pandemic softening phone sales worldwide.

Industry website Phonearena put it best however: “that’s what happens when you don’t throw in the towel after one failed attempt at a revolution.”