Jun 3, 2013
Mobile ad and mobile game, writ large, helped woo consumers to check out smart TV
From early October through mid-November 2012, Samsung, through its agency Starcom Worldwide, ran a social-mobile advertising campaign that targeted shoppers based on location. Using location-based advertising technology from JiWire, the brand and agency sought to get consumers out of their homes and into physical retail stores to experience the Samsung TV.With the Smart TV launch in fall 2012, Samsung introduced motion control and voice control features. The challenge was not only to create consumer demand for an entirely new TV category, but also to get consumers to experience the TV in person. Based on Samsung’s consumer research, 86% of people who bought a Samsung Smart TV first experienced the product at retailers.
The brand’s research also indicated that online reviews and word of mouth heavily drove smart TV purchases, so the goal became to drive consumer awareness of Samsung’s new product by getting people to experience it in stores. Then the hope was they would be compelled to share their experience with friends and family.
An idea to wrap the campaign around the Angry Birds mobile game led Samsung to the campaign strategy it decided to pursue. Samsung partnered with Angry Birds to demonstrate how motion and voice control work on the Samsung Smart TV. The campaign goal was to get consumers in stores and playing Angry Birds on big TVs to experience firsthand the motion and voice control.
“We [decided] to leverage a SoLoMo [social, local, mobile] experience, especially since smartphone users so commonly leverage social networks on their mobile devices,” said Erica Chen, associate global director at Starcom Worldwide.
Mobile technology platform JiWire delivered location-specific ads to consumers’ mobile phones—only when they were within the particular stores or within a 5-mile radius of a store. The ads included the name and address of the closest store so shoppers could access directions from their current location with one click.
“We know people are more likely to be active and spontaneous when they are already on the go,” Chen said. “Or even better, when they are already near the retail destination.”
The ad encouraged users to visit local retail stores to experience Angry Birds on the Samsung Smart TV. The ads also incorporated check-in buttons so that consumers could share, with their friends and followers, their location and the experience of being in the store playing Angry Birds on the smart TV. By checking in, users could enter a sweepstakes to win a Samsung Smart TV.
Samsung hoped these calls to action would motivate consumers to share their experience.
Measuring consumer engagement—engagement with the ad, clickthroughs, the number of consumer actions, as well retail store traffic—Starcom reported that the campaign results outperformed their expectations. Starcom and Samsung also measured social engagement through Facebook check-ins, social sharing, sweepstakes entries and in-store experience surveys.
“By leveraging hyper-location targeting, we were able to talk to consumers while they were already close to the stores,” Chen said. “This hugely increased the likelihood of them actually taking an action while in the store.”
