What do you get when you combine Martha Stewart, a talking measuring cup, and a viral TikTok post? A WOW-worthy moment for Samsung.
Samsung wanted to amplify awareness of their annual Unbox and Discover event and new celebrity partnerships, including Martha Stewart, while also increasing brand engagement to drive positive brand sentiment. The 2023 strategy aimed to reach a wider lifestyle audience, because the launch of their new products and feature updates can enhance the lives of everyone -- not just the tech obsessed.
By partnering with multi-dimensional celebrities like Martha Stewart, Rosario Dawson and Carl Nassib that represent various lifestyle categories (entertainment, sports, business), keeping a strong pulse on social trends, and having a fast-acting social listening and community management response process in place, Samsung was able to surpass their goals for the launch event with a culturally relevant, splashy moment that lives on in social media infamy.
In April 2023, Samsung hosted their annual “Unbox & Discover” event in NYC where they celebrated the launch of their new and exciting 2023 TV product lineup, and they simultaneously launched their ‘More Wow than Ever’ global tagline. (Foreshadowing for the WOW that was to come? We think so!)
Unlike past years, the 2023 strategy was to leverage the event to establish Samsung home entertainment as more of a lifestyle brand versus a consumer tech brand. With the help of partners Martha Stewart, actor Rosario Dawson and athlete Carl Nassib, the celebrities were perfect representatives of lifestyle categories that the products can play a role in, outside the more obvious categories of gaming and tech reviews.
During the event, the team orchestrated the queen of entertainment herself, Martha Stewart, to make a batch of her famous “Martharitas” as a demo of how the technology connects to help Martha with her hosting. She ran out of margarita glasses and wasn’t about to go without trying one herself. She grabbed a measuring glass and poured herself the magenta concoction before sauntering onto the event stage for a panel discussion with the Samsung Home Entertainment CMO -- in front of a live audience.
The crowd quickly took notice of this iconic moment and there was a social media storm abuzz with what the G.O.A.T., Martha Stewart, did live on stage at Samsung’s Unbox and Discover event.
Thanks to a robust social monitoring system and attentive agency team, Samsung caught the positive viral moment that was gaining traction on social. In less than 24 hours, the team created a TikTok stitch post in response to the viral social posts from an event attendee.
Samsung -- always with their finger on the pulse of the latest social trends -- leaned into trending audio and a hot creative social trend (a face filter and leveraging a popular TikTok sound). For maximum reach, the video was shared on @SamsungUS’s TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
This social post was Samsung’s most successful post of 2023. The viral moment was positively received on social and covered by multiple consumer outlets through earned efforts. It also allowed us to reach a larger lifestyle/consumer audience and see a massive uptick in engagements and positive brand sentiment – all through organic social media.
Organic Social Media Results:
The original viral moment posted by an event attendee received 2.4M views and was shared by popular media accounts like The Today Show (4.1M followers), @drinksforgays (1.7M followers), @betches (8.8M followers) and @deuxmoi (1.8M followers)
Samsung’s response post resulted in the top performing post of the year for Samsung (TikTok +195% over impressions benchmark and +179% over engagement benchmark)
Real-time event coverage on social media effectively grew @SamsungUS’s followers (+144% over BM)
Follower growth of ~9K in one day of the event
The creative social strategy and quick-turn response drove positive conversation (98.8% positive / neutral sentiment)
PR Results from the Event:
Secured 70.8% attendance rate, with media attendees from non-technology focused outlets including CNBC Select, Good Housekeeping, GQ, Oprah Daily, Parade, Rolling Stone, Seventeen, The Hollywood Reporter, TODAY, Vice, Vogue, Women’s Health
Generated 20 pieces of organic social media content from 10 media attendees about the event, new TV lineup and celebrity partners, including one viral TikTok that garnered 2.4M views
Secured six placements specific to the Martha Stewart viral moment in lifestyle outlets, which generated 558,517,687 impressions (~65% of total impressions from placements from the event)
