In the opinion of media, influencers, and devotees, the Samsung Galaxy series of phones has long been better designed, better equipped, and all together better than its competitors.

The best technology, however, is no longer good enough. With new and shiny products launching each year, customers are spoilt for choice and brand loyalty in this category is low.

Samsung had a problem: when it came time to upgrade their phones, many existing Samsung Galaxy users were switching to different brands.

Our challenge was simple: in the lead up to the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S7, we needed to win not only the minds but the hearts of Galaxy users. We needed to show them why they should stay part of the Galaxy family.

Samsung Galaxy owners in major cities across Australia had access to a private vehicle view within the Uber app which allowed them to request emojis on-demand rather than a vehicle.

When they did, we delivered them emojis made real – in the form of fun emoji shaped gifts, delivered by life-size emojis.

On the day of activation, thousands of gifts were delivered across Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane, with Samsung customers receiving everything from hand-crafted meringues shaped like the Poo emoji, to Gift emojis that included Samsung tablets, smartwatches and headphones.

The “delivery moment” was our social set-piece. A simple hashtag, #GalaxyEmojisAlive, was featured on thousands of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts, shared organically by recipients of the gifts.

As the activation continued, this spread of social activity snowballed into a critical mass of engagement, with many of our promotional gifts running out within hours.