Camera quality is still the main reason to buy a new smartphone, with video steadily overtaking photography. Brand differentiation is hard when new competing brands are quickly claiming market-share and driving extreme feature-fatigue.

Sided with an HQ ad campaign “beyond cinema quality”, our challenge was to activate Samsung's new flagship Galaxy S21 through a local idea.

This idea should sustain the launch in time, giving reasons to maintain interest and digital conversation about the product, through social media channels and Samsung’s website.

It should be a pretext to show Galaxy S21 exceptional video-making features: the three-camera system with the 4K and 8K resolution, Super-steady stabilizer and the director's view mode.

It should be relevant and engaging with the Portuguese culture, mostly among the early adopters, social expressers and tech lovers.

Fernando Pessoa is the greatest Portuguese poet ever. A symbol for the country. His work is translated and published around the world. When he died in 1935, he left a chest in his room with over 25.000 pieces of paper with poems, texts, and notes. Among those manuscripts, there were 6 movie scrips. A fact no-one knew about. These scripts never made it to the big screen and fell into oblivion. Until now. Almost 100 years later, “The Idol” is the first screenplay written by Fernando Pessoa being produced on film and it was entirely shot on a Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. To co-produce his first movie we also brought to life ECCE Film: the production company that he wanted to create to produce his own films. And we kept ECCE Film original logo designed by Pessoa himself.

Smartphones are a mature market in Portugal. Specific digital niches of influence drive purchase decisions: tech and lifestyle influencers, tech reviewers and price and spec comparisons.  

Galaxy S21 is Samsung’s flagship. It targets the early adopters, people who are willing to spend 1000€+ on a smartphone every year or two, mostly to express themselves on social media. The quality of the camera is key on the decision.

To bring Galaxy S21’s features to life, suppressing technical-talk and feature-fatigue, we went for an emotional approach.

We looked for an idea that could give local relevancy and impact to the cinema quality approach.

An idea that could generate talk and engagement amongst technology, innovation, cinema and culture lovers, while touching Portuguese people’s hearts. We target specific platforms of influence on these themes to generate organic coverage of "The Idol" production and releasing.

“The Idol” was activated on social media like an Hollywood production. It began with a teaser web film revealing the breaking news: Fernando Pessoa was also a screenwriter and his first film was about to be launched. Shortly after, the cast was announced and the trailer was launched on social media too. Then, we did a press screening on a movie theater. Fernando Pessoa’s first film ever premiered on Samsung’s website. Finally, we unveiled the behind the scenes, some easter eggs for movie buffs and the making-of highlighting Galaxy S21’s features, such as 8K, Director’s View, and Super-Steady.

The campaign was promoted from April to July, 2021 on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Samsung’s website. It generated big media interest and coverage, with organic interviews with the film director on TV shows, radio, podcasts, and digital media.

In less than 2 months, Fernando Pessoa’s first film reached +6 million people and generated +43 million impressions, +1 million views on video content, +99% positive reactions, and +180 articles were published around the world.

Compared to previous flagship campaigns, “The Idol” broke all the metrics:

+49% video through rate

+23% brand engagement

+99% time spent on website

+274% media impressions

+82% PR outreach

+208% e-commerce growth

+20% sales increase

Among all the Galaxy S21 models sold during the campaign, 56% of them were the same model we used to produce the film.

Most of all, “The Idol” became a cultural object of its own. It was bought by Cinemas NOS, the biggest movie theaters venue in Portugal, and by OPTO, a Portuguese streaming/VOD platform.

Now is on the verge of becoming part of Casa-Museum Fernando Pessoa’s permanent collection where it’ll be exhibited forever.