Black Friday is the biggest highlight in Samsung's promotional calendar. However, due to the current economic trend of "fun-flation" costs for entertainment in general and relevant electronic devices rise steeply. In this climate, even big promotions can be rather sad affairs. Especially on Black Friday, when it’s all about saving as much money as possible.

Working with a budget of approx. $1,5 M, we had to come up with an idea for the Samsung Online Shop that turns "fun-flation" around, increases the sales, puts the focus on the products and shifts the brand perception – by bringing the fun back to shopping. The campaign was rolled out during 17 days across 17 European countries and was leveraged by posts on major social media channels, an extensive online ad campaign and billboards with QR codes in major cities.

Why spend more money to have fun when you can instead have more fun to save money? We wanted to give the customers of the Samsung Online Shop an easy way to outsmart "fun-flation". During the 17 days of the Samsung Black Weeks campaign, we invited everyone to SMARTOPIA, an immersive digital amusement park with 6 engaging "rides" that are inspired by Samsung products. Visitors who won a game unlocked coupon codes they could immediately redeem for more savings on Black Week offers – letting them experience directly that the more fun they had, the less money they had to spend.

On top of that, we kept shoppers hooked with daily quests in the “Mission Gnusmas” game, where they hunted for coupons to collect the maximum discount. And we also put word out on the streets: Billboards with QR codes in mayor cities let them jump right into the game.

With almost 60% of Germans planning to hunt for deals online during Black Friday and over 70% looking for electronics, we wanted to make the Samsung Online Shop one of the main attractions of their hunt for the best deals – but not only in Germany but in all 17 European countries in which we rolled out the SMARTOPIA campaign. This is especially relevant for the Samsung Online Shop which is often overlooked by shoppers who are in the habit of visiting the Online shops of big e-retailers first. Leveraged by posts on major social media channels, an extensive online ad campaign and billboards with QR codes in major cities, we generally targeted everyone looking for Black Friday Deals and specifically the age group of Millenials/GenZ.

During the Samsung Black Weeks campaign period from 14.11.2023 – 30.11.2023, the SMARTOPIA landing page was integrated into the Samsung Online Shops of 17 European countries. The games could be accessed through an immersive Game Hub environment that showed the amusement park with all 6 games. Visitors who won a game, earned a unique discount code they could immediately redeem for additional savings on Black week offers.

While 5 of the games rewarded players with a single discount code, the "Mission Gnusmas" game offered "daily quests" during the entire campaign period: Players had to hunt for coupons that were hidden randomly between the Black Week offers. This motivated them to visit the Samsung Online Shop regularly until the last day of the campaign in order to earn the maximum discount possible.

In 17 countries all over Europe, Samsung showed its customers how it takes “inflation” out of “fun” and in this way turned SMARTOPIA into the most successful and wide-reaching Black Friday campaign for Samsung yet – with increased sales, very high conversion and retention rates and an improved brand perception:

Revenue: +20 % (vs. PY SEG and the highest European campaign result ever)

Average Order Value: + 27% (vs. PY SEG)

Conversion Rate: +63.5 % (vs. website visitors that did not play any game)

Retention Rate: +470 % (vs. website visitors that did not play “Mission Gnusmas”)

Total Visits: 2.1 M (SEG campaign landing page)

Total Players in Europe: 1.1 M (during campaign period)