Every year, up to a million tons of ‘ghost’ fishing nets enter the ocean, making up 46% of the South-Africa-sized Great Pacific Garbage Patch and killing over 650,000 marine animals for centuries to come.

As the biggest mobile manufacturer in the world, Samsung had the responsibility to act – becoming the first-ever mobile producer to incorporate ocean-bound plastics like abandoned fishing nets in its newest flagship S22 phones – transforming deadly waste into our most personal devices.

This action was the start of Samsung’s wider ‘Galaxy for the Planet’ brand mission, which aims to reduce environmental impact by 2025 by rethinking the lifecycle of a phone: from the oceans and lands (sourcing and manufacturing) to our hands (packaging and usage) to others’ hands (recycling and upcycling).

Now the question was how did we get even more people to care and join in this mission?

Believing that saving the oceans can’t and shouldn’t be done alone, Samsung reached out to the ultimate icons of hope and change , a global pop-cultural phenomenon with over 40M-Twitter fans: the 7-member Korean boyband BTS.

BTS has championed sustainability at the United Nations and Global Citizen stages. As the preeminent voices of the next generation, they were our perfect strategic and creative partners.

Together, we co-created a film that merged their U.N. speeches (e.g. “With the power of ‘we’, ‘us’, together”) with the actions of other champions of change (Bob Dylan) – inspiring planet and music-lovers young and old . The hopeful soundtrack? A Samsung Galaxy brand sound remixed by BTS member, SUGA. The visuals? Powerful images displaying the severity ocean plastics have on marine life.

As the film pulls out on a beautifully-regenerated world, it ends with the new initiative and brand promise: “Galaxy for the Planet”.

When polled, 70-80% of people said Samsung making phones from reclaimed ocean plastic excited them and would positively impact both the planet AND their purchase decisions. BUT less than one in three were even aware of Samsung’s efforts.

The tech community may have known, but we needed to reach a newer, wider and younger audience (think more TeenVogue, less AndroidCentral) – but with zero paid media budget.

So, in selecting our influencer partner, we considered who had the widest reach and found through social-listening analysis that if each of the 40M BTS fans posted just once about this ‘Galaxy for the Planet’ mission, it would reach an estimated 4 billion people worldwide. And boy were they mobilizers. According to Time magazine, they were “the most devoted Fandom with an unrivaled level of organization”. Perfect for sharing the ocean’s plea, Samsung’s new mission and transforming defeat into hope at scale.

To first activate BTS’ fans, Samsung teased the collaboration on Twitter and hinted with never-seen-before ocean-loving key visuals of their favorite popstars. The excitement grew.

At fever pitch, we launched the film at Samsung’s biggest product event – Unpacked – that had over 56M viewers (that’s twice that of the Oscars). With this film, we intercepted the usual product porn with a PSA for the oceans.

Having also learnt how much BTS fans loved easter eggs, we hid them all over the films and teasers. From using the UN speeches to hidden icons in the regenerated world to the song remixed by BTS, this sparked even more views, shares and re-watches.

Finally, to prove it wasn’t a greenwashing stunt, Samsung Mobile’s Head of Marketing herself walked people through the full process of turning fishing nets into phones.

BTS’ fandom loved and shared it everywhere – earning over 4 billion impressions with zero paid-media: (Real tweets: “This ad legit made me tear up. We need to be the change we want to see.”)

We restored hope to Gen Z: (“I’m zero waste and sometimes want to give up. This has just given me so, so much hope.”)

From Teen Vogue to El Heraldo, influencers and media around the world covered it.

The film was voted the #1 most positive Superbowl ad, without paying a cent to be there.

We strengthened Samsung fan love (“So happy I’m a Samsung user.” And “I might switch!”)

And most importantly, the overwhelming global reaction got Samsung’s President & Head of Mobile to respond, committing to incorporating MORE ocean-bound plastics and other recycled materials across the Galaxy product line by 2025. – truly turning a ripple into a wave.