2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

SAMSUNG S20 "AHMED HELMY"

BrandSAMSUNG
Product/ServiceSAMSUNG GALAXY S20 SERIES
EntrantLEO BURNETT CAIRO, EGYPT
CategoryExcellence in Partnerships in Talent
Idea Creation LEO BURNETT DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Production LEO BURNETT DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Production 2 LEO BURNETT CAIRO, EGYPT

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

In light of Covid-19, internet consumption drastically increased. People, including celebrities, were creating their own content. Amongst them was Egyptian superstar Ahmed Helmy, making him the perfect celebrity for our copy. Given how much our audiences are known to love Helmy’s humor, the script, music, and editing style were made to amplify it. With a twist between rapping and speaking directly to the fans, we created an attention-grabbing and entertaining piece of content introducing Galaxy S20 generating more than 5.5M organic views on Ahmed Helmy’s social pages! People started rapping to Samsung features on TikTok, imitating Helmy’s performance.

Background

The pandemic has left us in challenging situations and disrupted our plans. With travel difficulties and a curfew implemented in the UAE, there was no way our shoot could take place there. Our only way forward was to pivot and figure out how to make ends meet elsewhere. The brief was to develop a campaign to launch the new Samsung Galaxy S20 with the objective of raising awareness on it and clearly showcasing all it’s interesting features. By taking advantage of the curfew lift in Egypt, our star Ahmed Helmy being located there, and ensuring a production “pandemic” friendly shoot, we managed to shoot the entire copy in one location and made it interesting through script, music, editing and more importantly Helmy’s input.

Describe the creative idea

Amidst the pandemic, people got a bit closer to celebrities they admired. They got the chance to see them “in their element” at home, with their kids, working out, talking about interesting topics or just making jokes! With the circumstances of movies/ shoots on hold, celebrities used their platforms to speak to their audience, spark conversations, and stay connected. So, when it came to the copy we decided leverage that engaging technique with non-other than Ahmed Helmy himself, being one who’s mostly known and loved for his witty humor. Using the product’s technical features as the core guiding content, the idea was built around Helmy talking to the audience, even singing to them why the new Galaxy S20 was simply irresistible!

Describe the strategy

We had to launch and generate buzz for Samsung’s new flagship S20 mobile during the first months of the pandemic. We knew use of social media was sky rocketing and people were hungry for content. We had to create something fresh to capture people’s attention. The idea also had to be simple to accommodate production under strict restrictions. We realized that mobiles were more important than ever connecting people to friends, families, the world outside as well as providing entertainment to those stuck at home. We positioned the S20 as the “all work all play all day” device and invited star celebrity comedian Ahmed Helmy to share how he personally uses the phone and its features. Using Helmy’s wit, humor, his funny rapping style and some exciting videography, we created a long form film showcasing Helmy playing with the mobile and successfully raised awareness and engagement levels for the brand.

Describe the execution

When it comes to copies that air on digital, choice of content and celebrity play a huge role in their success. You can either grab people’s attention and encourage them to continue or lose them in the matter of seconds. That’s why we went for an execution style that is tailored to digital. In fact, we thought it more of a conversation! With Ahmed Helmy as our star, we needed nothing else. Not even multiple locations. We made use of his humorous appeal to the youth and witty style of delivering information in both “dialogue” and “rap”, creating a layer of dynamism to the copy that made it too hard for people to skip. People enjoyed what they saw after launching and immediately started rapping to Samsung features on TikTok, imitating Helmy’s performance.

Describe the outcome

The campaign observed 1.4M views in the first 24 hours with 6K+ comments admiring the video. People immediately started rapping to Samsung features on TikTok, imitating Helmy’s performance. Overall the campaign performed very well in spite of minimum spend and picked up organically across Helmy and other platforms. The piece succeeded in showcasing the S20 features in a fresh and engaging manner. Below were the results we achieved with the campaign. Ahmed Helmy’s social channels performance: Total Views: 5.8M Total Engagement: 780.5K Samsung’s social channels performance: 1.4M views in the first 24 hours with 6k+ comments Total Views: 3.3M Total Engagement: 131K

Credits

Name Company Role
Tameem Youness N/A Writer & Director
Osama El Arnaouty Leo Burnett Cairo Creative Director
Liz Taylor Leo Burnett Dubai Global Chief Creative Officer
Danielle Jammal Leo Burnett Dubai Agency Group Account Director
Ghada Barake Leo Burnett Dubai Communication Manager
Mohamed Yousri AMA Leo Burnett Head of Planning
Shereen Mostafa Leo Burnett Dubai Head of A/V Production
Prodigious ME Prodigious ME Production House
Sami Saleh Prodigious ME Production House
Marlene Jaber Prodigious ME Production House
Haitham Osman Prodigious ME Production House
Ahmed Tahoun N/A Production House
Mohamed Zohair Ammar N/A Music
Amr Rabee Prodigious ME Post Production House
Dima Geagea Prodigious ME Post Production House
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