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At last year’s Olympic Games, Samsung gave the 17,000 athletes and officials a special edition gold flip phone that they could use to post on social media about their time in Paris.
The move yielded a huge reward for the South Korean electronics company, already a sponsor of the event, in effect turning the sports stars into its own army of influencers.
“Suddenly we got exposure everywhere for a fraction of [what] it usually costs to do the Olympics, because it’s kind of free advertising,” says Benjamin Braun, Samsung’s European marketing chief. He adds that the “victory selfies” from the podium gave the sort of exposure that marketing money would normally struggle to buy.
This is an example of a marketing maxim endorsed by Braun called “mini-max”: the minimum effort for the maximum output. “If you can do that, you’re in good territory,” he says.
At the Cannes Lions festival of advertising this week, brand owners are expected to focus on the effectiveness and return on investment from their advertising spending. With budgets getting tighter, and results now more measurable given the performance data available with the bulk of advertising online, marketing bosses are under pressure to show their boards the value of spending on creative campaigns.
“I can’t just go off and give out 17,000 phones. It needs to return value,” says Braun, who points to a 23 per cent jump in sales of the phone between the months before and during the games.
“If you’re going to gain the respect inside of the boardroom and get the CEO and the CFO to listen, you need to become as numerical as the accountants. You need to become evidence-led. You can’t just walk around with crayons and pretty pictures.”
Marketing has become more complicated since Braun’s earlier roles at German carmaker Audi and consumer website Comparethemarket.com, but he says that mission stays the same in aiming “to propel the business forward”.
Part of this is identifying which channels can best be used to reach consumers — a constantly evolving decision given the decline of traditional routes such as linear television and the increasing importance of influencer marketing and social media.
Samsung this month agreed a partnership with British chef Jamie Oliver in the latest such celebrity influencer tie-up. “In the olden days, we might have put a lot of effort into TV advertising, outdoor advertising, direct marketing etc,” says Braun. “But by finding people who now have a following, you work with them instead.”
Interviewing Braun can be an unnerving experience. He often posts his interviews to LinkedIn, takes his own photos of interviewers, and prepares for the conversation by using an artificial intelligence-generated podcast briefing on the journalist and the main topics likely to be covered.
As a technophile, Braun is also passionate about Samsung’s own devices as he gives an extended tour of the group’s showroom in London’s King’s Cross, taking in washing machines that measure the exact amount of detergent needed as well as ovens that can steam fish.
He says it is important marketers, and a company’s top management, understand the products they sell “because they will then see things they don’t agree with, and that allows you then to drive the change you want to drive”.
Another key theme at Cannes this year will be the use of AI and data to personalise marketing messages for consumers. “We can personalise our advertising to you as a consumer by understanding what your needs are and where your needs are, and then make sure we deliver that,” he says.
But marketers need to work with “emotional intelligence” alongside artificial intelligence to make sure brands carry the human touch needed for highly effective “emotional storytelling”, he adds.
One of the biggest challenges facing marketers is ensuring that their brands are not inadvertently caught in any culture wars caused by the rapid shifts in politics and societal views. Braun says “the burden on my shoulder is not to bring the company into a territory which would be negative”, adding that Samsung carries out much of its work in-house, giving it a level of control.
This includes influencers, which Samsung prefers to engage directly, rather than via an agency.
“We bring influencers in, but make sure we educate them in the values of our company, and make sure that people respect those values. I expect anyone who works for a brand to understand what the values are and what our mission is.”
Despite his belief in the importance of mini-max, Braun also sees the value in simply going all-in when the occasion calls for a bit more noise. “Sometimes you have to [go] max-max as well. Sometimes you have to drive up the awareness. Sometimes you have to be loud about it, and it’s going to cost effort and time and people’s commitment, and that’s OK as well.”
