Value of Design Award

DDB Group Aotearoa NZ 12 Tribal Aotearoa Samsung iTest

2023 Value of Design
Credits
  • Pou Auaha / Creative Directors
    Damon Stapleton, Gary Steele, Haydn Kerr, Brett Colliver, Mike Felix
  • Ringatoi Matua / Design Directors
    Dean Pomfrett, Jason Vertongen
  • Ngā Kaimahi / Team Members
    James Blair, Liz Knox, William Falloon, Elliot Oxborough, Fabricio Maniu, Johannes Gertz, Danilo Castilho, Georgia Kerr, Holly Nicholson, Ashley Cook, Simon Betton, Tom Reed, Dan Cummings, Milon Williams, Trent Hall, Mike McMillan, Brett Macdonald, Kelly Rosnell, Briar Barret Boyes, John Alexander, Simon Smith, Minna Reinikkala
  • Client
    Samsung
Description:

We hijacked our biggest competitor’s devices to let Apple users test drive a Samsung Galaxy from the comfort of their iPhone.

Background:
We needed to inspire iPhone users to switch to Samsung, even as they were becoming more entrenched within Apple’s ecosystem by the day.

Challenge:
In order to make people believe that the Galaxy is simple, we needed to get them to experience it themselves.

But trying it in a store when there’s a salesperson hovering over your shoulder is never a great way to be convinced. And it wasn’t realistic to ask our highly indifferent audience to come in and try it themselves.

So we needed to put Galaxy in a place where people didn’t feel like they were being sold to, in order to convert their worry and indifference into curiosity.

Into their hands.

Approach:
We started building our 21st century Trojan Horse.
iTest.

A world-first web app, iTest was a disruptive switching program that gave Apple customers a risk-free way of testing out a Samsung Galaxy on their iPhone.

While it looked like a fully functional OS, it was actually a website mimicking a UI. This allowed us to take over the entire iPhone screen to give users a complete Galaxy experience.

After downloading and launching the web app, your iPhone is transformed into Samsung’s OneUI home screen.

It includes all your usual phone features: voice calls, messages, settings, email, a photo gallery. You can swipe up to Google and swipe across to Android’s side cards. You can launch apps, open widgets, and change themes.

But it also lets you tour Samsung-specific features like the Galaxy Store, Wearables, Samsung Kids, Samsung Health, and Smart Switch. We developed a camera app (with a tutorial from photographer Logan Dodds) which showed the advantages to shooting on Galaxy. We even built a fully-functional game.

The experience was designed to feel less dry tech demo and more open world exploration.

A phone isn’t a linear journey, so no matter where you tapped, you were met with something different. Giving iPhone users the time, space, and prompts to explore at their leisure and allay any worries or fears.

It was highly informational, but also playful, cheeky, and, as one YouTuber said, “buttery-smooth”.

Outcomes:
We got the Galaxy into iPhone users hands. Over 13 million of them, in fact.

Samsung global saw the success of this little campaign from the corner of the world, and have since turned it into a global rollout under the banner of “Try Galaxy”.

The average engagement time with iTest was over 40 seconds, making it hugely successful in getting iPhone users to gain a deep awareness of the Galaxy interface.

Since then, iTest has been honoured with the prestigious 2022 D&AD Black Pencil, (only the second one ever awarded to a New Zealand campaign), in addition to Gold at Cannes, the Grand Prix at Spikes Asia, Best in Show at Caples, and the best Tech Innovation of 2022.