Cannes Lions

Samsung SmartSuit

CHEIL WORLDWIDE, Amsterdam / SAMSUNG / 2018

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Case Film

Overview

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Credits

Overview

Description

For an innovative tech brand saying ‘do what you can’t’, we didn’t choose to just put a logo on a suit. We invented a whole new suit. A suit that enables the skaters and coach to do what they can’t: measuring in real time the height at which the skater is positioned above the ice. This height is one of the most important things in skating, because the closer to the ice, the faster you’ll go. Until now, this has always been judged on gut feeling.

We developed the Samsung SmartSuit, equipped with sensors to measure with millimetre accuracy. The suit is designed to send data to the coach’s device, allowing him to immediately communicate adjustments to the skaters.

Execution

First we needed to know how to create value for the short track skaters. Because only a real contribution would work for our PR campaign. Our key to success had to be innovation; our secret weapon for effective PR.

In March 2017, we met the coach and human movement scientist. As it turned out, one of the most important things in skating is the position of the ice skater. To measure this, we developed a suit equipped with 5 sensors that feeds live body kinetic telemetry to the Galaxy S8 (data) and Tab S3 (data/video/charts). If the skater’s posture requires correction, the coach can press a button on the Galaxy S8 to send a signal to the skater.

Once technical development had been completed, the technicians and short track skaters secretly tested and trained with the suit for months. Just before the Olympics we brought the story to the press.

Outcome

- After the press release, in no time more than 450 million people knew about the secret weapon. And about Samsung being a real contributing tech sponsor.

- Free publicity value: 1.411.778 Euro

- Total campaign key engagement rate of 1,3% (295% x benchmark, source: Starcom January 2018);

- 48,100 read articles containing branded content and 4,765,194 impressions obtained via the article. This scored 321% above the benchmark!

- Increase in Proud-to-Own brand value of 6%, up from 24% at the end of December 2017 to 30% at the end of February 2018;

- The skaters won the first Dutch Olympic silver and gold medals for short track skating ever!

- The Dutch and Korean sport federations are already keen on implementing the Samsung SmartSuit for short track and speed skating themselves. Even the federations of other sports (windsurfing, swimming, etc.) are interested in implementing this innovation.

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