Sponsorship campaigns usually communicate about a partnership by adding a brand’s logo on someone else’s story. At the most, this can be executed in an ‘entertaining’ way. We made our Olympic sponsorship entertainment itself by approaching it as a truly creative partnership. We created a ground-breaking tool to help the athletes perform better. Which enabled us to write a new story together. A story that sport fans would want to follow; will they win Olympic gold with this innovation? Entertainment itself.

Samsung has been a Worldwide Partner of the Olympic Games since 1998. For the Summer Games in Tokyo, Samsung Electronics Benelux sponsored BMX riders Niek Kimmann and Judy Baauw. The brief was to develop a strategy and creative idea for a sponsorship campaign around the Games that connects seamlessly with the Samsung brand mantra: ‘Do What You Can’t’.

Concrete objectives: achieve a top-3 position as a named Olympic sponsor in the Netherlands in a market saturated with major Olympic campaigns. And increase in the Proud-to-Own brand value; Samsungs’ most important brand-KPI.

As the bicycle capital of the world, the Netherlands has excellent cycling results at the Olympics (49 medals, 18x gold), but BMX-racing has been nowhere near as successful (2 medals, 0x gold).

As sponsor of two Dutch BMX athletes, you can hope for Olympic success. But as a tech brand saying ‘Do What You Can’t’, why not help them to be successful?

BMX is all about the perfect start; with 70% of all BMX-races being won in the first 6 meters. This start consists of 3 elements: reaction speed, power and the angle at which the bike is pulled up. The ideal combination of these three factors is the biggest mystery in BMX. Until we developed Samsung FastFrame. A new customised BMX bike, with built-in sensors measuring the factors in real time. The data, directly transferred to the coaches' smartphones, unlocked this ideal combination for the perfect start.

Creating true value for the athletes (Samsung FastFrame as a daily training tool) and the big press launch of the innovative secret weapon, formed the campaign core. A bold statement, fitting Samsung's brand promise.

We didn’t add a logo on an athlete’s story, we created a tool that enabled us to write a new story together. Instead of opting for guaranteed success at the Olympics, Samsung Netherlands decided to sponsor BMX-racing. The upcoming, mediagenic sport to which Samsung could contribute as a partner with technology.

We collaborated with the BMX-coaches, athletes and movement-scientist to develop a ground-breaking tool. The athletes trained secretly with the Samsung FastFrame. Just before the Olympics, when the buzz about innovations at the Olympics was at its peak, we brought it to the Dutch press.

During the Olympics, we demonstrated our intense involvement with the Olympians and earned appreciation with newsjacking videos and real-time advertising.

Afterwards, when we knew Samsung had succeeded in helping the athletes succeed, we launched the second PR flight to celebrate this shared success story.

First we needed to know how to create value for the BMX riders. Our key to success had to be innovation; our secret weapon for our success story.

July 2019: We started collaborating with the national BMX team to find the greatest barrier in BMX. November 2019 – May 2020: We developed, tested and improved various prototypes.

June 2020: Training with Samsung FastFrame started, continuing until the Games in summer 2021.

23 June 2021: PR launch. Samsung FastFrame presented to the entire Dutch media.

Early July 2021: Campaign follow-up talking about this secret weapon: TVC, Online video, DOOH, digital/social content, Metro AdTrack and catch-up sets for after the finals?

July 2021: Complemented by personal stories of Niek Kimmann and Judy Baauw; what is their story and their road to Tokyo? Online videos & branded content.

August 2021: After Olympics, a 2nd PR flight with shared success story.

After the press release, in no time the Netherlands knew about this ‘secret weapon’ and about Samsung being a real contributing tech sponsor. 61 national publications, 12.983.000 impressions.

The campaign rated highly and performed above the benchmark in almost every aspect. Reach: 69.557.400 impressions in the Netherlands only. With a relatively small media budget, Samsung was voted No 1 sponsor by Dutch the public. Above giants Heineken and Toyota.

This success story benefited the brand significantly: Samsung’s Brand barometer (Proud-to-Own index): +16%!

We created true value for the athletes. While training, they discovered that they started faster if they used less power and more bike control. Totally contrary to what they expected.

We literally proved ‘DoWhatYouCan’t’ with Kimmann winning the first ever Dutch Olympic BMX gold medal. Three weeks later, Kimmann won gold and Baauw won silver at the UCI BMX World Championships.

Source: DJV Insights September 2021