Samsung’s Video Campaign Pits Earth’s Soccer Stars vs. Aliens

 

TO promote its Galaxy mobile devices, Samsung Electronics is taking, fittingly, a galactic approach, with an international marketing campaign that blends science fiction with soccer fandom.

Central to the campaign is a series of videos, shot in a moody, otherworldly style reminiscent of “The Matrix,” that establish the premise: Earth is being invaded by aliens, and the only way to save the planet is to beat the invaders in a soccer match.

      

On Nov. 1, Samsung released the first video in the campaign, which features the retired German soccer legend Franz Beckenbauer, who tells an interviewer that he will be serving as the manager for the planet-defending team, called Galaxy 11, which he is commencing to field. “It’s ironic that after all this time it will not be our militaries or our science that will be our salvation,” says Mr. Beckenbauer gravely. “It will be football that saves the planet.”

      

The video has garnered more than 3.7 million views on YouTube. Another uploaded 10 days later, in which Mr. Beckenbauer anoints Lionel Messi, the Argentine soccer star, as captain of the team, has been viewed more than 5.2 million times. Since then, one or two more players have been announced each week in short videos, the last being Cristiano Ronaldo, of Portugal, in a video on Dec. 13 that already has received more than 1.2 million views.

 

Uploaded on Wednesday was a four-minute video, “The Beginning,” the longest thus far, which included clips of television anchors announcing the alien invasion and of the team members being gathered from all over the globe. The video ends with the team suited up in black astronaut uniforms in a hangar before a title card, “Football will save the planet,” and the address of a microsite for Galaxy 11.

Creative duties for the campaign were shared by R/GA, San Francisco, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, and Cheil Worldwide in Seoul, South Korea (Samsung is based in nearby Suwon). Direction on the video uploaded Wednesday is by Reynald Gresset, with cinematography by Arnaud Potier and special effects by Eight VFX. Samsung, which declined to reveal expenditures for the campaign, spent $265 million to advertise Galaxy devices in the United States in the first nine months of 2013, more than the $230 million it spent in all of 2012.

      

The videos are not commercials but rather what is known in marketing parlance as branded content, with the soccer players and actors prominently using Galaxy devices. Featured repeatedly is the futuristic looking Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which is worn like a wristwatch and functions as a companion device to a Galaxy smartphone or tablet, and from which James Bond aspirants can make calls, record conversations and shoot photographs and video.