ADVERTISING   |   POSTED ON 10.06.2014

Seeing Apple fans lining up to buy a new product is business as usual and it was also the inspiration for a… Samsung marketing campaign! Samsung New Zealand created the “Smart Phone Line”, a virtual queue for their fans to wait for the launch of the Galaxy S4. Not only saved fans the trouble of lining up outside the stores but also helped Samsung promote S4 through shares and tweets of their fans. Samsung relied on them to promote the S4 features on social networks, and the more they shared the further ahead they went on the “line”.

The Smart Phone Line was broadcast live in Auckland, New Zealand on huge LED screens which showed the avatars waiting in line, with real time speech bubbles that displayed their tweets. The avatars moved as if they were in a normal line, they went under blankets and into sleeping bags at night and even put up the umbrellas when it rained.

12’000 people queued, sharing 85’000 stories to 3 million people which had an organic reach of 15 million people. Samsung turned their fans into their media channel and since the launch, their market share has grown 12%. Smart move.