Arguably the biggest commerce event in the calendar, generating $33.9bn in sales worldwide and an estimated $3.8bn in AU, Black Friday is a revered sales moment each year for Samsung … along with a plethora of other brands.

Black Friday’s widespread popularity and expectations of increased spending over the period has created a market that is swamped with brands competing for attention.

For many consumers and brands alike, Black Friday has become overwhelming. Consumer’s inboxes are bombarded with deals from every brand they’ve ever dealt with, looked at, or accidentally visited. And with so much competition, Samsung was losing out to other brands and retailers over this period.

The Brief:

Create standout for Samsung amidst the ocean of Black Friday deals.

Objectives:

Deliver 1.7x YoY growth in online traffic and sales via Samsung.com and grow Samsung’s first party database by gaining 17,000 customer registrations.

We flipped Black Friday eCommerce on its head, leveraging an age-old sales mechanic with a twist: Samsung gave customers the power to decide the price they’d pay for its most popular products. We called it Samsung Reverse Auctions.

Unlike a regular auction, each Reverse Auction began with products listed at full recommended retail price (RRP). These prices would then drop back in increments until all items in the auctions had been bid for, or the price reached $1 – whichever happened first.

Launched via a series of social films that showcased the Reverse Auction as breaking news, people were directed to register their details via a website experience that offered a range of Samsung products up for grabs. People who engaged with the campaign were then targeted via performance media with a series of offer-specific 1-2-1 creatives that were tailored to their interests, ultimately driving revenue through Samsung’s online store.

As the biggest and busiest retail moment of the year, Black Friday is also the most expensive from a media perspective - in 2021, Samsung’s CPMs were 400% higher than average.

To standout, we needed to shift from a purely transactional approach that simply invested more in media spend. We had to disrupt a market swamped with offer led messaging, finding a way to capture attention and generate leads to be converted into sales.

This two-pronged challenge required us to strike a balance between driving standout while delivering commercial value. Articulated in a two-part strategy:

1.Drive Fame: generating hype around Samsung’s Black Friday sale by giving shoppers an unexpected, novel and emotive retail experience through Samsung Reverse Auctions.

2. Drive traffic/sales uplift: Harness buzz and leads acquired from Reverse Auction to

a. Drive more traffic to Samsung’s website,

b. Convert leads to sales via tailored 1:1 communications and performance marketing

We leveraged high-impact digital media placements to raise awareness of Samsung Reverse Auctions. We also deployed targeted eDMs to Samsung’s database to further drive awareness and attendance reminders for the Reverse Auctions. 

Users were incentivised to register their details for a chance to take part in the auctions. This compelling value exchange saw us generate over 51,000 registrations.

We ran 20 Reverse Auctions over the campaign, attracting over 80,000 bidders, offering a suite of Samsung products valued at $140,000 RRP, all unlocking brilliant deals for customers. 

The Reverse Auction website delivered a frictionless experience that captured leads, hosted auctions and boasted live bidding technology for large traffic volumes. It fuelled remarketing activity, driving traffic to Samsung’s Black Friday sales pages and provided data for our performance marketing engine. We leveraged Reverse Auction data to target registered users via 1:1 sales conversion communications to drive significant YoY traffic and sales uplift.

The campaign was a huge success, turning heads across the country. We saw significant increase in onsite activity, reaching 120% of our target for site traffic, 285% YoY. While anyone can give away products for $1, Samsung leveraged the hype generated through the Reverse Auctions and data from the 51,500 (+203% vs. target) registered bidders to drive growth in online traffic and Black Friday sales. 

Fuelled by our performance marketing activity, acquired leads massively exceeded Samsung’s sales expectations, with a 515% YoY increase in eDM attributed sales. A modest incremental media spend of $186k saw sales increase by $1.34 million, improving YoY ROAS by 196%. 

Overall, the campaign delivered a 270% increase in Black Friday revenue compared to 2022, drove a juicy 360% mROI, and goes down as Samsung's most successful Black Friday campaign in history.