Samsung needed the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G launch to be a success and they had good reason to hope it would be. On paper, we had an innovative product featuring the best smartphone camera on the market—a feature we knew was of prime importance to young consumers. The issue was that despite our superior tech specs, 18-29-year-olds consistently choose Apple over Samsung, and that trend was accelerating.

We broke this down into two perception challenges:

- Camera: Young consumers didn’t know that Samsung had the best mobile camera on the market after being raised on 8 years of Shot on iPhone campaigns.

- Brand: While Samsung has an amazing reputation for cutting edge tech, young consumers prefer Apple.

Our ultimate aim was to drive consideration amongst young people, and to do this we set two objectives:

1) Establish Samsung’s camera superiority

2) Make young people proud to own Samsung

Samsung was struggling to break through to 18-29-year-olds as Apple’s Shot on iPhone campaign cornered the market on mobile photography—despite Samsung’s superior camera. When features aren’t enough, you need to make consumers stars of the show, literally in this case. Introducing the world’s first smartphone competition show, Exposure. We partnered with Hulu to produce a series that dramatized the incredible feats of 8 creators and uncovered the human stories behind their photography.

Across six hour-long episodes contestants were challenged and eliminated based on every aspect of mobile photography. Together with Samsung, our distribution company, and our production team, we produced work that organically demonstrated the S21 Ultra’s awesome camera features within storylines that appealed to the passions of Hulu’s young streaming audience. The result was a one-of-a-kind reality show that blurred the lines between advertising and entertainment.

Samsung, like every brand, has to constantly recruit the next generation in order to grow: We knew that 18-29-year-olds were going to be vitally important to the success of this launch, and they consistently ranked the camera as one of the most important features on any phone. In focus groups, participants were drawn to the S Series camera as the most striking and distinctive part of Samsung’s new phone.

And yet, young people were choosing Apple over Samsung, despite superior technology. We knew that we couldn’t just present our audience with camera specs or show side-by-side comparisons. As one consumer said, “Who cares if it is 50 or 100 megapixels, it’s all the same at this point.” Instead, we flipped Apple’s Shot on iPhone script on its head. Instead of focusing on the beauty of the photo, we decided to focus on the stories behind the lens.

The first season of Exposure was set at six episodes, each centered around a photography challenge rooted in culture. The result was a truly natural product integration that didn’t feel like a sponsored segment, highlighting the camera without eclipsing what made our photographers so compelling to watch. The end result was a true reality show that lives on an evergreen basis on Hulu.

Hours and hours of reality TV footage produced over 300+ paid and organic assets. Our content ecosystem integrated touchpoints ranging from the Hulu platform to paid digital, PR, organic social, boosted social, and owned Samsung properties like Samsung.com, email, and the brand’s dedicated OOH placements in Times Square.

Exposure surpassed our expectations. In fact, it doubled them:

- Product Consideration: We smashed camera superiority benchmark by 12.9 pts and product consideration benchmarks by 16.6 pts.

- Brand Consideration: Increased “proud to own” amongst young people by 11.5pts above our benchmark.

Exposure was among the top 10 titles amongst unscripted content on premiere day, and a whopping 43% of our viewers were between the ages of 18 and 34. We increased traffic to Samsung.com with 360K visits to the Exposure landing page. 75% of the unique visitors were visiting the page for the very first time.

Exposure finally broke through in a way Samsung's previous advertising had struggled; getting beyond specs into storytelling, earning attention instead of buying it, and building credibility with a younger generation raised on blue bubbles.

The ultimate sign of Exposure’s success came in the form of an announcement—when Samsung greenlit Exposure Season 2.