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Background & Context:

The “Apple vs Samsung” war has long been a tactical war of attrition.

The wrapping paper might be beautiful, but it’s also highly rational.

New features are showcased in TED Talk-like speeches in dark auditoriums. Glossy product shots adorn billboards seven stories high. Ad campaigns bring to life the delight of a better camera or a harder-working battery. There are in-store demonstrations, LTO’s and promotions. The list goes on.

This approach was keeping Samsung in the fight, but wasn’t doing much to convert iPhone users. As it turned out, they weren’t interested in rational persuasion.

Apple users wanted to know what the brand and product would FEEL like to own, but Samsung seemed to only focus on product features. Comms was largely a laundry list of “firsts” and “bests” – functional attributes and performance.

iPhone users had switched off.

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Creative challenge:

Break through the inertia that kept iPhone users from looking elsewhere and

seduce them to take a leap into uncharted territory.

In 2018 the Apple Safari team allowed Progressive Web Apps onto its platform.

iTest.

Big mistake. This inadvertently lowered the drawbridge for an experience that was previously impossible.

A fully immersive Samsung experience, on iPhone.

So rather than telling iPhone users about how great Samsung was, we would show them.

We started building our 21st century Trojan Horse.

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Solution:

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

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Execution:

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* Samsung's 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, all within your own "Galaxy".

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, where the user could control a cute little Android figure who ran around collecting “apples”…

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”.