Samsung: THE SMART PHONE LINE

Credits & Description:

Website URL: http://www.thesmartphoneline.co.nz/
Type of entry: Branded Tech
Category: Digital Billboard
Advertiser: SAMSUNG NEW ZEALAND
Product/Service: GALAXY S4
Agency: COLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Client: SAMSUNG NEW ZEALAND
Product: GALAXY S4
Entrant: COLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Type of Entry: Branded Tech
Category: Digital Billboard
Entrant Company : COLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Advertising Agency : COLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Media Agency : STARCOM NEW ZEALAND Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Creative Chairman: Nick Worthington (Colenso Bbdo)
Digital Creative Director: Aaron Turk (Colenso Bbdo)
Art Director: Brett Colliver (Colenso Bbdo)
Copywriter: Simon Vicars (Colenso Bbdo)
Group Account Director: Scott Coldham (Colenso Bbdo)
Head Of Planning: Andy Mcleish (Colenso Bbdo)
Producer: Paul Courtney (Colenso Bbdo)
Producer: Amanda Theobald (Colenso Bbdo)
Producer: Scott Chapman (Colenso Bbdo)
Digital Developer: Paul Headington (Colenso Bbdo)
Digital Developer: Adam Wood (Colenso Bbdo)
Digital Developer: Craig Macgregor (Colenso Bbdo)
Marketing Director: Mike Cornwell (Samsung New Zealand)
Group Marketing Manager Of Mobile And It: Debbie Fell (Samsung New Zealand)
Company Director: Greg Skinner (Rollercoaster Design)
Producer: Amanda Chambers (Assembly)
Animation Company: N/A (Assembly)
Post Production: Jeff Nusz (Assembly)
AV/Led Wall Supplier: Bob Wilson (Oceania LED Systems)

Creative Execution:
To get access to the first GS4s in the world, excited fans joined The Smart Phone Line through Facebook and Twitter. Every day we sent the virtual queue new features of the phone.
Fans could jump the line by sharing these features with their social networks. The more their friends shared, liked and re-tweeted the features, the further up the line they moved, and the more our phone and its features got seen.
Broadcast live to a 150ft digital billboard downtown, we turned the virtual queue into a real world, dynamic line and our fans became our media channel.


12,000 people queued for 2 weeks.
They shared 85,000 stories about the phone’s features through their social networks.
The stories reached 3 million newsfeeds.
An organic reach of 15 million.
Media coverage surpassed Samsung’s previous smartphone launch by 165%
The Smart Phone Line received $1.3 million dollars worth of PR and we launched a smartphone to the entire nation thanks entirely to our fans.
Since its launch, Samsung’s smartphone value share grew 12%


The iPhone 4S had recently come out and uptake wasn’t as high as the market had expected. Conversation was rife around the phone not being ‘worth shifting for’. With the brand new GS4 about to be released we ran the risk of being tarnished with the same brush as Apple - “The GS4 will just be a slightly better GS3, why bother?” Compounding our challenges, noone actually knew what made the GS4 different and exciting. All the features were kept under lock and key until shortly before the phone’s arrival.
Once announced, we were tasked with building fast hype and awareness of the phone and its features in the weeks before launch to both the GS3 customers, and unsatisfied Apple customers.
Samsung telling the country why the phone was ‘The Next Big Thing’ would fall on deaf ears. So we got our fans to do it for us.