The TV category faces three big challenges. First, inertia, with the average shopper replacing a six-year-old set because they think their current TV is good enough. Second, seasonality, when people are ready to upgrade, they wait for Black November/December deals, around 40% of our volume sales. Third, commoditization, when people are finally upgrading, they struggle to differentiate brands & products, from the advertising sea of sameness (every ad an abstract metaphor for color with technobabble VO) to products that all look the same, even when compared side by side. So our brief is to give people a reason to upgrade sooner, to cut-through the Black Friday retail carnage, and to ensure people arrive online or in-store with an unshakable desire for Samsung. Our ultimate objective is to increase market share of Samsung QLED TVs.

To launch the new Samsung TV, we partnered with Netflix and Aviation Gin to create the world’s first ad-within-an-ad-within-an-ad. In it Ryan Reynolds explains that the QLED TV is the only screen big enough for his new Netflix film ‘6 Underground.’ Just as he’s done touting his new movie on the QLED, the ad gets hijacked by an ad for his other endeavor: Aviation Gin.

Our strategy is to shift from specs to spectacle. Rather than just advertise picture quality, instead we create spectacle in fan culture. So we segment our target audience based on fandom, on interest in sports, shows, movies, and gaming. Our insight is there are moments when our TVs make the biggest difference to fans’ experiences e.g. playoffs, premieres, console launches. So we can use fans’ passion for those moments as irresistible reason to upgrade.

For movie fans, our moment was the premiere of Netflix’s ‘6 Underground’, their 2019 Holiday blockbuster. Our key message was our TVs are made for the biggest moments and no 2019 premiere was bigger, with Michael Bay behind the camera and Ryan Reynolds in front of it. Working with Ryan gave us a unique opportunity to create and distribute assets to our target audience of movie streamers.

We utilized every element of the entertainment property and partnership to execute an integrated campaign in 3 acts:

1. 6Underground trailer drop - We created a “Trailer Warning” that ran before the trailer warning fans about how big the movie will be so it needs to be experienced on a super-big Samsung TV.

2. Pre-Black Friday Announcement - Ahead of the movie premiere, we dropped the world’s first “ad-within-an-ad-within-an-ad”, featuring Ryan promoting our super-big TVs, his new movie, and his own brand, Aviation Gin. The social film dropped on Samsung Twitter, was promptly retweeted by Ryan, Netflix, Aviation, and thousands of others, before running in select TVC placements.

3. Premiere - In response to Ryan’s ad-within-an-ad-within-an-ad, we surrounded his premiere by taking over all media in Hudson Yards (and on his IMDB page) to remind fans that the best way to experience his movie was on a super-big Samsung TV.

We cut through the Black Friday carnage, with the total campaign achieving 551mm impressions, Ryan’s social film achieving 8.9mm organic views, 2.4mm within 24 hours. But what about some real results? Well, Aviation had its biggest month ever, selling 99,600 bottles. 6 Underground was Netflix’s second-biggest movie of the year, with 83 million views. And as for Samsung, we weren’t lost in the Ryan Reynolds-iness of it all, with 78% of social mentions were about Samsung QLED TVs and 24% about purchase intent. In fact, Samsung increased “unaided awareness top answer” +4% and “most preferred brand” +9% pre vs post. Most important of all, our super big screen market share increased +10% pre vs. post, helping us achieve a record $335 million in super-big sales during the campaign. All for a relatively modest budget, strictly confidential but media spend $2mm-$5mm and minimal production investment. Now those are some results-within-results-within-results.