We were briefed to launch Samsung's A03 smartphone amidst a national crisis in Myanmar, and they would be the first major brand doing a product launch since the military coup in February 2021. The launch would take place against a backdrop of heightened consumer activism and a corporate crisis in which Samsung's leaders were accused legitimizing what was seen as an illegitimate government by most target audience members.

Furthermore, consumers were calling for boycotts on brands communicating too promotionally or not being sensitive to the current situation in the market and the A Series is known for catchy jingles, fun campaigns and sonic branding.

Samsung engaged us to conceptualize and manage a nationwide digital launch campaign with a strong emphasis on reputation/issues management. Our objectives were to generate nationwide awareness for the A03 phone, protect Samsung's brand/create a net reputation win, and generate sales from an e-commerce component.

The A-series audience (mid-lower income families) responds best to catchy songs, dances and jingles in marketing communications. This sonic branding that worked most effectively before, is EXACTLY the kind of communications to which the Myanmar audience would respond the worst. So in our idea design sessions, we had to answer a key question: “to dance, or not to dance?”

Ultimately the strategy was to dance! We were able to uncover an attention grabbing creative idea by understanding the concerns of our audience aligned with the concerns of the opposition government - creating a federal democracy that celebrates the country's diversity rather than just the Burmese nationalist mindset of the military.

So we were able to use sonic branding by doing, for the first time in the country, a campaign using in all three major languages spoken in the country (Burmese, Shan and Kachin) in our creative idea.

We danced because of this insight: the target audience were strong supporters the NUG (opposition government formed to the military junta) and one of NUG's public imperatives was to establish a federal democracy in Myanmar that was representative of the country's diverse ethnic groups.

Our key messaging was to communicate the features of the A-Series that would most appeal to our audiences like battery life and speed and, most importantly, VALUE - as customers were very price sensitive, even ones not traditionally in the A-Series demographic (low-middle income families in urban and sub-urban areas).

Our creative director (Shan ethnic) incorporated the messages into a jingle he wrote, then adapted it into the other languages and set the jingle's tune. We created a digital video series showing each version, using C-tier ethnic KOLs as talent since popular celebrities were unavailable/in hiding due to their public opposition of the military.

Our key messaging was to communicate the features of the A-Series that would most appeal to our audiences like battery life and speed and, most importantly, VALUE - as customers were very price sensitive, even ones not traditionally in the A-Series demographic (low-middle income families in urban and sub-urban areas).

Our creative director (Shan ethnic) incorporated the messages into a jingle he wrote, then adapted it into the other languages and set the jingle's tune. We created a digital video series showing each version, using C-tier ethnic KOLs as talent since popular celebrities were unavailable/in hiding due to their public opposition of the military.

The 2-month campaign itself consisted of the content strategy, the video series, supporting social media content, a UGC campaign, radio ads and consumer PR - with e-commerce integrations.

Firstly, we deployed the Burmese version and targeted accordingly. It was received well due to obvious ethnicities of the talents and the song's empathetic emphasis on financial value, but there were some mixed reactions at first due to the upbeat nature.

Shortly after, we dropped the Shan version. Something no major brand had ever done and no one expected. The other version followed and we boosted both geographically to regions of the country with highest concentrations speakers to maximize reputation equity.

Supporting activities like radio ads, a UGC TikTok campaign where they could participate by learning ethnic dances to each version and video game, fashion and other content marketing supported the message of “worth it/value” while encouraging sales and engagement.

The reactions were 100% positive with brand/product interest spiking significantly - especially after the Shan version dropped.

The videos would achieve an organic views of 1.8m, and a collective reach of nearly 20m for the campaign. This came at a time when Facebook (the main channel for all brand comms) was banned and could only be accessed by VPN in a country of 53m people. Engagement was incredibly high (~20%) and positive sentiment was pervasive (see some translated comments in attached supporting material).

The e-commerce channel saw a large referred inflow of traffic from Facebook and Tik Tok and we achieved our sales figures KPI within a couple weeks of the campaign launch. In the end, strong positive brand sentiment was concretely achieved. There are even now consumers from different ethnic group requesting the brand to do in their language such as, Kayin & Rakhine, opening the opportunity to extend this approach for the A-series in the future.

At no point in the campaign did the client receive any mention of the issues of its alleged meeting with the junta representatives.