Olympic Genome Project

Samsung

Brief as received

Samsung has a large marketing investment for four years to be the Official Wireless Telecommunications Equipment Partner of the USOC for the Olympic Games.

Consumers are only paying attention to our sponsorship for less than a month out of the the four years.

Maximize our investment - Make Samsungs Olympic Sponsorship more interesting and engaging to mobile device consumers over a larger period of time.

Research & Insights

Surveyed adults 24-54, online, across three regions and interviewed a select.

The scale of the games surprises them - the number of events and athletes - because there’s minimal coverage outside the games immediate broadcast windows.

Most said they loved the Olympics, but not connected to it like sports leagues because they didn’t really know the athletes.

Unless they knew of some one personally, they didn’t pay attention to the Olympics or their sponsors, when the games were not happening.

Re-framed brief

How can we better connect everyday people to the thousands of athletes training and preparing for the next games?

How can we relate olympic fans to olympic athlete journeys on a personal level outside the three week games window?

Sharpened audience definition

Not just casual sports fans - Focus on people who care more, when they know more about an athlete.

Fans who strongly relate to local team athletes (NBA, UEFA, etc) and could relate to Olympians with “more connection.”

Problem identified

In research people repeatedly said: “If they had more connection to the athlete, they would care about their sport.”

People didn’t know how they're personally connected to the Olympics.

Insight that shed new light

People who knew someone who had competed or tried to make a team were very engaged and passionate about the sport, team and athlete outside the “olympic window.”

They knew more about waterpolo, track & field or even equestrian events, if they had a “personal connection to an athlete.”

Marketplace & cultural understanding

The Olympics is mostly experienced on linear TV based format, but consumers are increasingly experiencing sports digitally and non-linearly. These same consumers are connected in deep ways via social networks.

Olympic Athletes are connected consumers who compete at the highest levels, but also share “everyday attributes” with “fans.”

Yes, they’re olympians, but they also have home towns, high schools, favorite music, pet ownership, etc just like fans.

A new way of thinking about the product or brand

Mobile is about connecting people together in new ways - relating experience together through new context.

Samsung Galaxy mobile phones could connect fans and athletes together, in surprising ways that drives interest and excitement in athletes, teams, events and the games themselves by asking a simple question:

How am I connected to the Olympics?

Work the brief inspired

“The Olympic Genome Project”

A direct answer to the question, “How Olympic Are You?”

With a single click, on the Olympic Genome Facebook page, Samsung Mobile crosses your Facebook profile information against the profiles of thousands current and past Olympic athlete’s. The result is a graphical representation of what athletes you share the most in common with, why and scores “How Olympic you are.”

The Genome Project is a completely digital idea at its core. Very simply, it’s an Facebook app that builds a ‘family tree’ that shows how you are connected to Olympic athletes.

A transformational idea that uses the power of discovery and curiosity about how you’re connected to athletes – to weave together a community that’s passionate about the Olympic Games.

Results

Launched at SXSW, in it’s first month Olympic Genome Project had 120,000 consumers participating and wanting to know how Olympic they were - 4 months before the games started!

The monthly unique participants doubled every month till reaching 12.8M consumer olympic connections by the games start.

This exceeded all Samsungs internal Olympic ROI measures by 10x.