2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Gaining brand love and pride is a process which requires a lot of dedication and engagement. It’s a relationship which involves an open, two way communication. For the first time Samsung decided not to speak as a global brand but actually to rely 100% on women from the region. To overcome the stereotype that women do not understand tech, we gave a voice to powerful women from the region – Nathalie Trad and Reemami two self-made entrepreneurs. Based upon their own experience with technology, they lead the conversation about their experience with Samsung devices and how it helped with the growth of their own businesses.

Creative Execution

Nathalie Trad and Remami were at the center of Samsung communication. There was no other communication on media. Only by using the power of true and engaging storytelling, Samsung used a women’s word. The first step was the partnership with Nathalie Trad, who was designing a clutch with a little help from Samsung. After the first week, we noticed positive feedback from our female target audience. Even national media were interested in our story and invited Nathalie to TV shows, photoshoots and several different interviews. We knew we had a winning recipe and we followed this path. We invited another business lady from the region to join the conversation – Remami. She created a convertible jacket for all busy ladies, again with a helping hand from Samsung. We succeeded in being the center of media attention yet again.

Business Objective: Improve women’s affinity levels towards Samsung. KPI: Increase Samsung “Proud to Own” metric by 40%. Results: Proud to Own metric amongst women increase from 28% in Q2’14 to 92% in Q2 ’16 (229% increase) Communication Objective: Create a platform that would reconcile Samsung’s brand KPI: increase the engagement rates on the promoted content versus generic Samsung communications by 100% Results: The promoted content drove higher engagement: eg. 225% increase in likes when compared with a Samsung organic post. (vs. set target of a 100% increase) Samsung gained more than 650K USD in additional media value with this approach (1.5X more than its actual spend)

When Samsung realized that it wasn’t connecting with a very important target audience – women – we were asked to take action. The modern Arab woman is driven, adaptable, fashion conscious. She is technologically adept and purchases her own devices. Crucially, she is also a key influencer of other people’s purchases. We took advantage of it and only by using the power of true and engaging storytelling, Samsung entered a women’s word. And with a great success - Proud To Own metric amongst women increased from 28% in Q2’14 to 92% in Q2 ’16

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Young women in the UAE are an increasingly dynamic group in the region’s social and cultural makeup; they are trendsetters as much as they are early adopters. They value the opinion of similar entrepreneurial women. Being a woman in UAE is not easy, there is a lot of social pressure to be the best at everything you are doing, privately and in business. Nathalie and Reemami were the perfect examples of women who succeed in this and they also loved the Samsung brand. They started the conversation with women about technology and success. What technology means to them and what they would like to improve? Starting from a small idea that smartphones nowadays are so big that they do not fit in a clutch. Nathalie Trad designed a clutch Samsung Note 5. This started the Samsung Her Program. A program designednfor women by women.