How Samsung Used Angry Birds to Generate Over 12 Million Minutes of Brand Engagement

The Modern Media Agency Series is supported by IDG. The only thing to grow faster than electronic communication is the amount of digital content. It’s difficult for buyers to find what they want. It’s not much easier for sales reps as IDG Connect’s Bob Johnsonfound in his research into content used by sellers and buyers…

In an overcrowded and over-hyped marketplace, how do you generate genuine buzz around a smartphone launch? Media communications agency Starcom took an interesting and innovative approach with the recent global launch of the Samsung Galaxy SII by creating an exclusive level of the super-popularmobile game Angry Birds.

"Phone launches have become ever more competitive with an incredible amount of pressure to prove successful within the first few weeks. If Samsung wanted to make an impact with the launch of Galaxy SII, they needed something that was globally relevant, highly engaging and easily scalable across dozens of local markets," explains Kristen Kelly, VP global business director of Starcom.

"Mobile games and Angry Birds were that opportunity. We knew that our target audience used social games far more often than they watched prime-time television shows, and as the number one mobile game in the world, a partnership with Angry Birds would offer us meaningful access to their over 50 million unique active fans. In addition to the custom Galaxy level, we created an online area for users with never before seen images, online video and a contest where users could enter to score highly coveted Angry Birds’ merchandise, as well as bragging rights to those fans who secured the exclusive 'Golden Egg.'"

The Partnership

Starcom collaborated with Rovio to create the Galaxy SII level, with Samsung getting unrestricted access to the beloved Angry Birds characters. Rather than just a badged level, Starcom worked with Rovio and Enrich Mobile to offer a much more compelling, integrated experience and incidentally, the first ever Angry Birds level to be played in zero gravity.

The Angry Birds characters were used in mobile rich media units and video strategically placed throughout the Angry Birds mobile game. Samsung ran more than 14,000,000 rich media impressions within the Angry Birds game mainly in Europe, Asia and Australia, driving users through to a Samsung-owned mobile landing page, which acted as the hub of the campaign.

With the mobile media spend focused on the game, it was complemented by a global social media campaign, with promoted posts on both the official Angry Birds Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The Hub

Getting potential players through to the "hub" was of course, just the start. The landing pages on both web and mobile allowed Angry Bird users to watch a video showing them how to unlock the "Golden Egg."

Crucially Rovio designed the gameplay so that the virtual prize, the aforementioned Golden Egg, would be almost impossible to find without watching the video, being told virally via social media, by friends or via message boards.

The news spread quickly, creating a viral buzz for the weird, spacey level and of course, the Samsung Galaxy SII. Starcom reports a high click-through rate to the Samsung SII product pages from the hub, and a high number of competition entrants keen to win Angry Birds merchandise. This campaign had thousands of entries, says Starcom, all of whom Samsung can now communicate with directly.

Justin Lello, CEO of Enrich Mobile, describes the campaign as "seamless to the user in the publisher environment."

"The Angry Birds/Samsung Galaxy SII campaign was a classic demonstration of how an integrated sponsorship campaign created positive viral buzz from devoted Angry Birds fans around a very slick Samsung owned environment and game play," says Lello.

"Through this integrated approach, users build positive relationships with brands and in turn an exponential earned return unobtainable through standard display media."

The Results

Users have spent more than 12,800,000 minutes engaging with the Samsung branded level. It can be seen as an example of how modern agencies can execute an integrated marketing campaign.

"The development of an ownable Golden Egg Galaxy level, combined with targeted mobile rich across technology and entertainment environments, delivered an incredible response to the campaign -- more than 1.6 million game plays and average of eight minutes of engagement per user," reports Kelly.

"As the level itself was playable globally, the organic seeding and earned online buzz led to game plays from all corners of the globe. Starcom recognized the power of leveraging paid, owned and earned, and negotiated with Rovio to broadcast a message to their Angry Birds Facebook Fan page about the promotion -- to 4MM+ fans."

"We also coordinated with Jam @ Engine, Samsung Mobile's social media agency, to broadcast the message on Samsung's Facebook page as well. This active approach to harmonizing the effects of paid, owned and earned, established the success of the Galaxy SII launch. Galaxy SII is already Samsung’s best ever selling phone with more than five million handsets sold in just three months."

Series supported by IDG

The Modern Media Agency Series is supported by IDG. There’s universal agreement that digital information is very important for vendors and their prospective customers. But, the amount of content is overwhelming for both groups. IDG Connect’s Bob Johnson conducted research this year to better understand how the content could be improved. Johnson spoke with IDG Strategic Marketing Services Director Howard Sholkin about content valued by users…

Images courtesy of Angry Birds Nest

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Via: news.yahoo.com

11/16/2011