The “ART Berlin”: During this annual event week at the End of September, artists and art enthusiasts from all over the world come together to enjoy the latest in contemporary art in Germany. The brief by the client: Using a budget of around 500.000 € and with no actual media spending, how can Samsung establish itself as a brand for creatives and creators and reach art and technology fans alike?

The answer to the brief was: by enriching one of the most analog, yet immersive forms of art, through Samsung technology: street art.

Street Art interferes with its environment and engages with the audience. We amplified these inherent principles of the form and extended the original conceptual ideas of specific artworks with the help of completely new AR layers, changing the role of the audience from passive viewer to active participant.

Our target group was the visitors of The Art Berlin including artists and creators, a general Berlin public interested in art and technology on a broader scale, and the online followers of the artists involved in the campaign.

Without a dedicated media budget and in regard to the topic, the approach had to be experiential by nature.

But catering to the art world or an art-minded audience is no easy feat as a commercial brand. So the best strategy for Samsung promised to be not to compete with art itself. Instead, we opted to immersive the brand in the art world through collaboration and help artists to break barriers and go beyond their own boundaries thanks to the superior AR and VR capabilities of Samsung mobile devices.

In collaboration with five international artists, we created several highly visible murals and installations in pop-up-galleries across Berlin. All works were complemented and completed by a mobile AR app for Samsung smartphones, for some, we even installed dedicated Samsung mobile AR and VR sets. During the one-week art event, People could interact with the artworks in real life and enter new worlds at the same time. By combining art and technology, we freed the original wall art from its two-dimensional constraints, giving the artists an extra canvas and the audience the chance to be an (inter)active part of the artwork itself.

Each of the six artworks provided a completely different experience. But besides the main AR parts, the app also guided users to all locations of the installations, gave additional in-depth background information including making-of videos, and allowed people to take selfies or photos of the street art with the augmented parts visible as filters.

By combining art and technology, we transferred 2D wall-art into 3D space and freed it from physical barriers. Thus, the artists could unleash their full imagination, and visitors could literally become part of the art by interacting with it. In the end, nearly 10.000 of them did so, either through the app or via pre-installed Samsung smart devices. Thanks to extensive free media coverage, the overall reach was about 158 M, with the app becoming #6 Trending App in the Google Play Store.