Why Samsung Utilised the Most Impactful Brand Sponsorship Strategy - Case Study Example

Samsung: The Most Impactful Brand Sponsorship Strategy of 2016 Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Date Introduction After gaining massive dominance of the brand sponsorship conversations in the 2016 Rio Olympics held in Brazil, it was apparent that Samsung had employed the most effective brand sponsorship strategy of 2016. Brand sponsorship entails the payments made by a company to associate its brand with a team or sporting event such as the Olympics (PwC, 2011). It was evident that the level of engagement created by Samsung outpaced that of its immediate competitors such as McDonald’s and P&G. According to the Brand Agility Index study conducted by Waggener Edstrom Communications (WE), a firm that specialises in public relations, Samsung’s brand sponsorship strategy was the most effective campaign in the 2016 Rio Olympics (Hobbs, 2016). Considering the fact that the Rio Olympics was the largest sporting event in 2016 as well as the dominance exhibited by Samsung in the event, it is proper to state that sponsorship strategy employed by the company was the most impactful strategy of 2016. The principal area of focus of the essay is the reasons why Samsung utilised the most impactful brand sponsorship strategy of 2016. Samsung’s Strategy prior to the Olympics In the run-up to the Olympics, it was already apparent that Samsung would turn out to have the most impactful brand sponsorship strategy. A research conducted by EntSight prior to the onset of the Rio Olympics aimed at discovering how the fan base talked about the four biggest sponsors of the global event. All sponsors consent to a four-year contract in accordance with each Olympiad. Currently, the TOP programme comprises of the following sponsors: Coca cola, Samsung, Visa, Bridgestone, McDonald’s, Proctor & Gamble, Omega, Panasonic, Atos, Dow, and General Electric. The sponsors have a combined revenue that exceeds US $ 1 billion. The release of the “World National Anthem” video by Samsung played a massive role in sparking online conversations from the fan base. Attaining 53% of online conversations (Think Marketing, 2016), it was evident that Samsung was the most talked about global brand in the build up to the 2016 Rio Olympics. After consenting to the deal to become one of the Olympic sponsors, Samsung role was to deliver wireless communication equipment to make the Rio Olympics to have the greatest connectedness ever witnessed in the history of Olympics. Samsung’s marketers understand that sporting events present a major opportunity of accessing huge numbers of customers (OC & C, 2014). In the quest to attain the objective, Samsung embarked on three significant endeavours. Firstly, the company developed the official Rio 2016 app. Samsung also released the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Limited Edition smartphone to celebrate and acknowledge the Olympics event. Finally, the company produced the “World National Anthem”, to celebrate the principles of the event (Think Marketing, 2016). According to EntSight, the Olympic-themed Samsung Galaxy S7 was the main point of focus by the fan base. To be precise, the number of times that online users mentioned the smartphone exceeded 9500. News sites sparked the conversation. Later on, the conversation extended to the social media. The Response to the Strategy According to Smith (2016), firms that agree to sponsor the Olympics event have the primary objective of marketing themselves to the public; particularly the Olympics fan base. As a result, Samsung’s decision to sponsor the Rio 2016 Olympics event aimed at boosting the sales realised by the company from its products after having communicated its products in front of the massive fan base associated with the Olympics event. In essence, the sponsors get a massive return on investment (IEG, 2011). Individuals also praised the multinational company for its effective mixing of comedy and high-drama in the event. This enabled the company to clock 20,635 global mentions, the highest as compared to the other sponsors. As a result, Samsung attained an index ranking of 103 points thereby turning out to be the standout sponsor of the event. Coca cola, the other giant company that has been on the forefront in sponsoring the event managed the second position having clocked 17,405 global mentions and garnered 94 points (Hobbs, 2016). The table below shows the list of sponsors during the Rio Olympics event including their global mentions and total index ranking. Global Sponsor Mentions Total Index Ranking Samsung 20,635 103 points Coca cola 17,405 94 points Visa 9,781 94 points Toyota 1,614 85 points P&G 4,224 84 points GE 3,573 77 points Atos 3,389 73 points McDonald’s 6,452 68 points Omega 4,071 66 points Table 1: Global mentions and Total Index Ranking of the Rio Olympics’ Sponsors The Implementation of the Strategy during the Olympics Event It is evident that Samsung’s sponsorship strategy pushed its Galaxy S7 smartphones to significant heights. The campaign areas that Samsung focused on during the Olympics event include retail, digital, media, and social. Gabe Turner and Rattling Stick were the directors and producers of the films used by Samsung in the Rio 2016 Olympics event. Samsung also filmed live virtual reality interviews with athletes from Team Great Britain (GB) in Rio. According to Russell Taylor, the chief marketing officer of the Samsung brand, the company aimed at using a “credible” way to give fans a closer feeling and look at the Rio Olympics. It is evident that one of the operational motives of the company that encourages it to surge forward and defy barriers to its success played a crucial role in the motivating the company to become an official sponsor and partner of the Olympics and Paralympics events. In reiteration of the company’s operational slogan, Taylor mentioned that Samsung was pushing global athletes to the heights of their success by enabling them to exploit the limits of their talents. In the campaign, the company featured some of the world’s greatest athletes alongside Jack to make the adverts appealing to the fan base. Besides being an Olympics Sponsor, it was evident that Samsung was also a sponsor of Team GB. The “World National Anthem” produced by the company featured six athletes that originated from different countries including Tom Daley, a Team GB diver (Subramanian, 2016). From the sponsorship strategy employed by Samsung, it is proper to state that the company employs strategies that either pushes the product to the customer of pulls the customer to its products. The use of advertising and sales promotions in the Rio 2016 Olympics by the company attained the dual objectives of pulling the customers to its products as well as pushing its products to customers. The Total Index Ranking According to Hubbs (2016), Samsung dominated online conversations at a time when other sponsors struggled to spark interest from online users. Samsung’s ability to clinch the first position on the Total Index Ranking aspect indicates its ability to create the most impactful brand strategy of 2016. Computing the Total Index Ranking takes into consideration five aspects that include the scalability of the campaign, sentiment, personalisation, and originality. In order to attain the score, WE gathered and analysed data on engagement levels and conversations from brands across forums, news sites, blogs, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube comments during the Olympics event. In order to consider a comment as a company-specific mention associated with both the brand and the Olympics event, the WE searched for the mention of both the specific brand and Olympics in the comment. Samsung’s “World National Anthem” The timely release of campaigns also turned out to be the other contributor towards the success of Samsung’s global sponsorship strategy in comparison to the other brands. The fact that the Olympics event occurs after every four years implies that companies forget to create the social buzz early enough to receive the anticipated attention from online users. Samsung managed to exploit the opportunity by implementing a pre-Olympics rally that raised an alarm to everyone. Even though Bridgestone Tyres and Coca cola also exploited the opportunity properly (Hubbs, 2016), Samsung’s dominance in creating the required publicity with the fan base implies that its strategies were more effective and appealing than those of its main rivals. Strong engagement was the pillar onto which Samsung’s campaign strategies rested. For instance, the “World National Anthem”, was an artistic and skilful combination of the national anthems of the Olympic team into a single anthem. It is evident that the anthem continues to attract positive interactions and engagement from individuals to this day. Comparing the sorts of activation employed by other firms with Samsung’s, it is apparent that Samsung’s activation was ‘one of its kind’. The use of new campaigns also contributed to Samsung’s ability to win the interest of online users. On the contrary, companies such as Proctor & Gamble repackaged old campaigns and used them in the Rio 2016 Olympics. By so doing, it was evident that online users considered such campaigns as boring and opted for Samsung’s creative campaign (Hubbs, 2016). Even though P&G operates under the belief that it is not necessary to repair a well-performing strategy, it is apparent that the regular use of the “Thank You Mum”, campaign by the users continues to lose the desired impact when used repeatedly in almost all major sporting events. Why Samsung Outperformed its Rivals in the Sponsorship Strategy Even though the contribution of other firms such as Atos, GE, and Dow Chemicals in the Olympics is also massive and critical to the successful running of the event, it is also evident that their repeated use of repackaged old campaigns was responsible for the reduced impact of their brand sponsorship strategy on the fan base. The fact that both Coca cola and McDonalds engage in the fast foods industry elicited negative concerns from potential customers regarding the appropriateness of a fast foods firm sponsoring a global event such as the Olympics (Hubbs, 2016). According to customer reviews, there is need for both companies to tackle the health issue affecting the fast foods industry head on before attracting positive feedback from potential customers. The other reason behind Samsung’s ability to create the most impactful brand sponsorship strategy of 2016 is the decision of the company to rely on emotional connection with customers in the campaign. The emotionally driven marketing strategy employed by the company was also responsible for the crowning of the global firm as the Creative Marketer of the Year in Cannes back in June 2016. The consumer-centric approach towards marketing has proved to bear fruits to the company. In the campaign, Samsung aimed at communicating how its products could improve the lives of users (Bos, 2016). In essence, Samsung created a sense of purpose for its products to lure customers to purchase the products. In essence, Samsung created a considered and rational relationship with potential customers during its campaign by establishing an emotional connection. The strategy aims at ensuring that customers purchase the products of the company not because of the price that the firm offers for its products but because of the emotional connection that the firm has established with its customer base. Apparently, the application of real creativity is detrimental towards the success of establishing an emotional connection with customers. This was exactly what Samsung managed to achieve in the brand sponsorship strategy. The release of the “School of Rio” campaign also contributed to the ability of the company to attract many online users. An outward viewing of the film would compel the viewer to regard the film as a move by Samsung to push its Galaxy S7 products to the customer. However, an in-depth analysis of the film indicates that besides mentioning the attributes of the product, Samsung reprised the campaign idea that it used in the Rugby World Cup. The Rugby World Cup film featured comedian Jack Whitehall and famous stars that taught the comedian on the subject of different sports. On the other hand, but almost similar to the Rugby Campaign, the “School of Rio” campaign featured cyclists Betty James and Bradley Wiggins. The five spots of the Rio activity that extend across digital, media, social, and retail are the subject of the film (Hegarty, 2016). Russell Taylor revealed that Samsung had the objective of building the love for the Samsung brand with the help of the Rio 2016 Olympics. Taylor reiterated the fact that Samsung has massive assets to capitalise on during the event to achieve its mission (Magee, 2016). In essence, the Rio 2016 event presented a substantial opportunity for the company to boost its customer base. Taylor noted the highly competitive and saturated arena and the emphasised on the need for Samsung to use high creativity in standing out from its competitors. According to Taylor, the use of high creativity in the marketing campaign was the only way through which the brand sponsorship strategy could make an impact on potential customers. “The School of Rio”, comprised of two consumer insight aspects. The first insight was the knowledge that many Britons rally behind Team GB during the event considering the fact that the team engages in different sports after a span of four years. As a result, people watch the event once and have to wait for four years before having the other chance of watching the Olympics. The second insight entangled in the film is the fact that people have the desire to know more about the event. However, they dislike patronising and lecturing as the ways of teaching them about the event (Magee, 2016). The motivation behind the use of the “School of Rio”, campaign emanated from the success that the company realised after using an almost similar tone in the “School of Rugby”, campaign. As mentioned earlier, the “School of Rio”, campaign featured Jack Whitehall as well as great Paralympics and Olympics athletes across the globe. At the end of the artistic piece, Taylor revealed the assurance that the campaign was engaging and funny as expected. It is evident that Taylor understood the complicity that exists between brands and customers as well as the perceptive and smart nature of today’s customers. As a result, customers would only tolerate the involvement of a brand in an event if the participation guarantees a reward for them (Chun, 2014). According to Taylor, entertainment is the reward that customers expect from brands. Therefore, the entertainment crafted by the company should be effective and capable of moving customers to guarantee that they would engage and share with the campaign. Prior to the presentation of the piece of entertainment to the customer audience, Taylor and the entire marketing team believed that Samsung had managed to deliver the required customer reward of entertainment (Magee, 2016). Besides developing a campaign that introduced its products to potential customers, it was apparent that the campaign also contained product features of the Galaxy S7. The inclusion of the product attributes of the latest flagship product of the company intended to increase the sales of the product in accordance with the primary objective of sponsoring the Olympics. Conclusion Samsung created the most impactful brand sponsorship strategy of 2016 during the Rio 2016 Olympics. This was because the brand dominated brand sponsorship campaigns in the 2016 Rio Olympics held in Brazil. Samsung’s brand sponsorship strategy that comprised of the “World National Anthem” and the “School of Rio” campaign contributed immensely towards creating an emotional connection between customers and the brand. Russell Taylor, the chief marketing officer of the brand identified the need for establishing positive relationships between the brand and its potential customer base during the Olympics. The timely release of the campaign to potential customers also gave Samsung an upper hand over its main rivals. Finally, it would be appropriate to associate the success of Samsung’s brand sponsorship strategy with the high creativity of its marketers. References Bos, E. (2016). Why Samsung’s Olympic sponsorship was a success – and McDonald’s was not. My Customer. Chun, Y. (2014). The most effective sports marketing and sponsorship: Samsung and Hyundai-Kia. LinkedIn. Hegarty, B. (2016). 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