22 February, 2016

Behind The Scenes Of Uber And Samsung’s Emoji In Real Life Campaign

By Emma Mackenzie

For five hours last Thursday Uber drivers were careening around Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane delivering real life emojis (in the form of doughnuts, cakes, flowers and Samsung watches) to Samsung phone holders, and friends of Samsung phone holders.

With emojis being used more and more by brands we spoke to Carla Webb, head of integrated at Edelman Australia, the agency behind the creative concept #GalaxyEmojisAlive.

How did you come up with the concept?

We’re currently experimenting without a conventional creative brief. It’s more focused on solving a problem creatively rather than sticking to a process that can hinder. So after a deep dive into customer insights and spending a fair amount of time with the brand team, we starting exploring creative as a group, led by myself and our executive creative director Jamal Hamidi.

This group was made up of UX (user experience) designers, community managers, tech PRs, etc. The final idea was a shared winner (we hope!) and team effort.

What other ideas were tossed around?

It was a focused brief, but one that gave a lot of creative freedom, so we had a wide range of ideas. To be honest, there are a few more winners on the chopping room floor that we’re discussing with Samsung so I’ll keep those to myself for the moment…

How did the client take the idea initially? Was there any convincing needed?

No convincing needed, which was nice. I got a text not long after our Friday arvo meeting with several emojis indicating a big YES. Always good to start a weekend like that.

From a PR angle, why was Uber a good channel?

We wanted to come up with something that would do each brand justice. Edelman doesn’t think of PR in the traditional sense though (“let’s PR this thing”), so there was no “PR angle” on this. Public relations is about connecting brands with people; so lining this up with the client brief – to give back to Samsung Galaxy owners – meant we needed to actually do something for customers that they would value. With Uber as the partner and platform to deliver, it made sense to simply do something that would make people smile.

What’s been the response rate so far?

It was an absolute sell out and Samsung owners loved it. The Zumbo poo meringue (did I just say that?) was a highlight, but so was the Gift Box which had a nice little $500 Samsung Galaxy Gear S2 in it, so you do the maths.

What was your expected response rate?

A sell out, we hoped. But mostly it’s about helping Samsung customers feel the love and enjoy their Thursday.

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