Samsung is global Olympic partner of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang and Samsung Netherlands is sponsoring Sjinkie Knegt and Suzanne Schulting, two Dutch short track skaters. Although the Netherlands has excellent speed skating results at the Olympics (35 Olympic gold medals), short track is nowhere near as successful (1 bronze/0 silver/0 gold).

The brief was to develop an idea to claim sponsorship of two Dutch Olympic short track skaters, and to keep in mind that Samsung stands for: ‘Meaningful progress comes from daring to defy barriers.’ With the tagline: Do what you can’t.

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 skaters and coach to do what they can’t: measure in real time the skater’s height above the ice. This height is one of the most important things in skating, because the closer you are to the ice, the faster you’ll go. Until now, this has 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 communicate adjustments immediately to the skaters.

After the press release, the whole world wanted to know all about this secret weapon. The ‘digital doping’ Samsung developed for the Netherlands in the race against the Korean medal contenders in PyeongChang.

The athletes and coach trained with the suit in secret for months. Just before the Olympics, when the buzz about innovations in sports, tech at the Olympics and potential secret weapons in PyeongChang was at its peak, we brought it to the press.

We didn’t invite them to come and see Samsung’s latest invention. No, we invited them to come and discover the latest sporting innovation just before the Olympics. And to find out about the ‘digital doping’ Samsung developed for the Netherlands in the race against the Korean medal contenders in their own country. In fact, we invited the press to one of the Olympic athletes’ official training sessions.

After the press release, in no time more than 450 million people knew about the secret weapon. And – in the slipstream – about Samsung being a real contributing tech sponsor of the Olympic short track skaters.

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.

After the press release, in no time half a billion people knew about the secret weapon. And about Samsung being a real contributing tech sponsor. The tremendous appreciation of this unique sponsorship benefited the brand significantly; see below.

Awareness: €830,000 in free publicity in the Netherlands and €1,410,000 worldwide.

KPI: 10% growth of KPI Proud-to-Own brand value within 2 months, from 24% to 34%! (DVJ Insights).

48,100 article reads with branded content 4,765,194 impressions. 321% above benchmark.

Total key engagement rate among millennials of 1.3% (benchmark: 0.44%). Average View Through Rate online videos of 20%, which is extremely good considering the length (60 and 30 sec.). (Starcom)

No. 1 best scoring campaign in the Netherlands in terms of attractiveness, innovation and sympathy. (Motivaction)

We literally proved ‘Do What You Can’t’. During the Olympics, Knegt and Schulting won the first ever Dutch Olympic silver and gold medals for short track.