Samsung's "Join the Flip Side" - A Genius Marketing Strategy?

Smartphone manufacturer Samsung has announced a global campaign focused on the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 device. The campaign is known as Join the Flip Side. Its purpose is promoting the launch of the manufacturer s line of phones and persuading people to reject their composition of another brand (in this case, assumed to be Apple).

A characteristic of Z series is its screen-to-adjusting folding design, which allows the screen to be securely packaged away without compromising its square dimension. For the two-minute part of the short film of the campaign, the character is enchanted by her friend's folding mobile phone before instinctively replying, "I would not ever switch to Samsung, I like my smartphone."

The main character then starts daydreaming about the folding feature and sees it in all sorts of things (books, sandwiches, toilet lids, scooters, yoga poses, and even in a square pizza). The amusing ad ends with her folding her smartphone in half before purchasing the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 and joining the flip side.

There are a series of five 15-second social films that highlight the portability of the phone and the unique folding feature through amusing animations. In one, the phone comes alongside a herd of galloping horses, while in another one, its "pocket-ability" is demonstrated through sliding in and out of numerous pockets.

Also, in Belgium, bus benches were replaced with seats that resembled the Samsung Z Fold phones, which unfolded into a seat.

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Smart Switching: The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 device was released on August 26, 2022, and Join the Flip Side was introduced in order to build desirability and hype for the product during its public release. But the campaign is also competing for the best moment in September to capitalize on the significant influx of smartphone releases from brands such as Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and Google where people are more susceptible to switching phones.

Samsung intentionally targets audiences when they're already considering an upcoming purchase. As a result, a message has a higher probability of having an effect and getting consumers to buy proposed by Samsung.

Recently, Samsung New Zealand received a prestigious Black Pencil at the 2022 D&AD Awards for the iTest campaign, a responsive campaign that used an app to enable iPhone users to try out the Android interface from the comfort of their existing phone.

Flipping Heck: The featured point of the ad is the way it incorporates storytelling with rational presentation (for example, a phone that flips!). In his book Lemon, book author Orlando Wood mentions an important element of organic ads, the need to embrace the oppositional nature of relationships between people, which is reflected by the use of cultural allusions and references, and the replacement of fluency with metaphor and other devices?(characters or scenarios that represent the brand message) - in short, the customers must ‘entertain for commercial gain’. Samsung's Join the Flip Side is a textbook example of this advice in action, delivering a valuable manufacturer info via witty and relatable storytelling.

In the Fold: Particular smart observation about Join the Flip Side is that one of the brand's goals is to increase the perceived value of the product to get people to notice it in their everyday life - an instance of the Baader-Meinhof impact.

This unique design differentiator provided by Samsung also falls in line with the brand's current marketing strategy, as these are the features which are then prioritized. Samsung's competitors often have similar features, however, and the brand is merely solidifying their image as the place to buy foldable smartphones. For the launch of the Flip 4's predecessor, Samsung used a similar strategy to promote portability of the smartphone. It partnered with an Australian clothing brand, Dr Denim, to create an exclusive limited-edition collection that had pockets in the right design for the Samsung Galaxy Flip 3.

Let us know what you think about the branding & marketing strategy used by Samsung.