We needed to show people that everything they loved to watch, can be better when there’s more than one angle to see... and, give them a way to think about content beyond the traditional frame. Essentially, we needed to show them how much better a 360º video can be when it’s created properly.

Our idea was to partner with one of the world’s biggest traditional social content creators to “Unframe” their offerings by creating content that was designed specifically to be better in 360º. “Unframed” wasn’t just a campaign line, it was a philosophy, that gave traditional content creators, and viewers, a whole new way to think about how they watch and create content.

We partnered with NowThis, a well known content creator on Facebook, to produce 23 360º films that demonstrated the strengths of 360. Like showing how much more fun it was to put the camera in the middle of the action, instead of just facing it. Or how, mounting it on a moving object, can make you feel like you’re moving through a scene, instead of just watching.

While viewers thought they were just watching content about their favorite things, they were actually learning about the benefits of UNFRAMING content and how to create it with their own 360º cameras.

Our campaign gave people engaging content that encouraged them to look around, as it transported audiences to 5 continents and over 20 countries. We immersed viewers in distant places and unique experiences like gondola riding in Italy; sleighing through Santa's Village in Finland; and exploring a baby elephant orphanage in Kenya.

NowThis x Samsung

#1 Most Viewed Branded Campaign on Facebook in 2017

NowThis became the number one 360º video publisher on Facebook in 2017 with our Samsung Gear 360 series, (Source: Tubular)

As Facebook brought 360º to the masses, we made sure those masses were seeing the best examples of it. (with ‘Unframed’ getting more views than any 2d campaign in 2017 on Facebook) (Source: BrandTale).

+239 million combined video views

23 of our videos were selected by YouTube for their Best of VR Portal - a showcase of the best 360º/VR content the internet has to offer

Target: Millennials. Medium/heavy social users, with a focus on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram.

Our strategy was to partner with social content producers to Unframe their offerings and give people amazing examples of how much better content can be when it’s properly shot for 360º video. Our ideal partner needed to have massive global reach and high audience engagement, which made NowThis the perfect choice.

NowThis is a digital publisher with a singular mission: to tell stories that move for today’s mobile generation. NowThis brings expert visual storytelling together with an authentic, trustworthy voice. With this mission in mind, NowThis has developed its own expertise in producing and distributing engaging videos on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social platforms, that reach millennial audiences at scale with engaging social storytelling.

At the beginning of 2017, YouTube and Facebook enabled 360º videos on their platforms. However, even though both platforms made it easy to upload and watch 360-degree videos, very few people were actually doing so. We noticed that consumers were using 360º cameras to capture content in the same way they would shoot a traditional shot - not considering the 360º frame they had to play with. As a result, much of the 360º content people were seeing on social wasn’t high quality, real 360-degree content.

Samsung, the market leader in 360º hardware, knew that in order to grow the 360º category, they needed to normalize watching and creating 360º content first.