Storytelling is the heart & soul of Samsung's campaign: Ranjivjit Singh

Samsung India’s campaign film #SamsungService has crossed 100 million views on YouTube in just seven weeks of its launch, becoming the highest-viewed advertising video in the Consumer Electronics and Smartphones category worldwide and the highest-viewed advertising video on YouTube across all categories in India (as on February 20, 2017). The campaign film has been conceptualised by Cheil India. 

‘We’ll Take Care of You, Wherever You Are’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=779KwjAYTeQ)  – showcases the journey of a young Samsung engineer on his way to provide services in a remote village in India, highlighting Samsung’s vision of creating long-lasting relationships with its consumers through timely service. The film has also accumulated over 224,000 consumer engagements on various social media platforms. 

In conversation with Adgully, Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung India, and Tarvinderjit Singh, ECD, Cheil India, speak at length about the making of the ad, the creative thought process, creating an emotional connect with consumers and much more. Excerpts: 

Were you expecting such a response to the #SamsungService ad film?
The fact that #SamsungService campaign video has been viewed over 100 million times (in seven weeks) since it was launched gives us a lot of encouragement. It means that we have been able to reach out to our valuable consumers and deliver our message to them. 

The heart and soul of the whole campaign is its storytelling, with the underlying message that Samsung as a brand cares for its consumers and will reach out to them even in remote locations. 

The TVC is a part of the nationwide campaign showcasing Samsung’s initiative to take customer service to the doorsteps of consumers in the hinterland. The campaign film aims to apprise consumers about the initiative and let them know that Samsung will take care of them wherever they are in the country. Our intent was to tell the story in a compelling way. 

Samsung’s customers are spread across the length and breadth of the country, even in the remotest of villages. Our campaign touches every Indian heart and we are overwhelmed by the response. That this campaign has created a world record is truly humbling for us at Samsung. 

What was the brief shared with Cheil for this campaign?
It was simple; we wanted to showcase Samsung’s brand ethos – customer care at every step and innovative technologies to solve real life problems. The idea was to tell the story in a compelling way that illustrated our commitment to take care of our consumers, no matter where they are. 

The fact that quality Samsung service is now available in every corner of the country was a key takeaway in designing this campaign. Our brief to the agency was to create a campaign video based on a human story expressed in an emotional way as our proposition for #SamsungService is Samsung Cares. 

Apart from garnering record views on YouTube and building an emotional connect, in what ways has the campaign translated into sales, revenues, increasing the brand equity for Samsung?
It all depends on the storytelling route you want to take for your messaging. In our case, the objective was to reach out to our consumers who are located in India across geographies and tell them that Samsung cares for them and will reach out to them through its service vans. 

The campaign made an emotional connect with our consumers and touched upon hearts of millions of people right from the beginning. It is because of these reasons that it has become the highest-viewed advertising video in the Consumer Electronics and Smartphones category worldwide and the highest-viewed advertising video across categories on YouTube in India, as of date. That was most endearing was the consumer engagement that this film could create. On social media platforms, the film received more than 226,000 likes, shares and comments. Most consumers admitted that they were moved to tears and felt connected to Samsung like never before. This also helped the film in being the fastest to reach 100 million views on YouTube in India. 

What kind of investment has been made by Samsung to augment its service network?
Our endeavour at Samsung India has always been to cater to the consumers, be it with innovative products or world-class service. We are always gathering feedback from our consumers and creating innovations that are meaningful. 

The intent of the new campaign is to apprise our patrons about our initiative and let them know that #SamsungService cares, and will reach them in every part of the country. 

We have been in India for 21 years and have further strengthened our service outreach. Today we have the widest reach of service centres with trained service engineers. This team will go to the deepest parts of the country to service the needs of our consumers. In October last year, Samsung strengthened its commitment to provide quality customer service in both urban and rural India by augmenting its service network with 535 service vans. 

The idea behind launching these unique customer service vans was to reach out to our customers in the remotest corners of India, ensuring timely service to them. The aim is to bring world-class service to the doorsteps of lakhs of rural and semi-urban consumers. With this new addition, the Samsung service network is now over 3,000 strong from around 2,000 service points earlier. With this, Samsung’s reach will extend to consumers in over 6,000 talukas across 29 states and 7 union territories, making Samsung’s service network the largest in this industry in India. 

We also unveiled a new, easy to remember, customer service number so that our customers can reach us easily, whenever they need to. When you want to reach Samsung, dial 1800 40 SAMSUNG. 

Please comment on Samsung India’s performance in the mobile and consumer durables categories in 2016 and the road ahead for the company.
In 2016, Samsung further strengthened its leadership position in most of the categories like Smartphones, Panel TV, Frost Free Refrigerators, Invertor air conditioners and microwave ovens. In the first and second quarters of 2017, there will be a slew of innovations and exciting products that we will launch in the Indian market to enrich the lives of our consumers. We are extremely confident that Indian consumers will continue to reward their love and trust in the brand Samsung. 

Agency Speak – Tarvinderjit Singh, ECD, Cheil India 

Please take us through the making of the #SamsungService ad film – from the drawing board to the final execution.
All these consumer durable companies concentrate only on the towns and cities when it comes to providing service. So, people who are outside the town in the remote areas have to travel great distances to get their appliances repaired. Through this initiative we wanted to give Indian solutions to Indian problems, so we came up with these mobile service vans in October and there are around 500 of them. We started with a fresh campaign in all Indian languages. The intent to the entire campaign is to tell people that no matter where they are, we will take care of them. 

How did you choose the characters for the ad film, especially the visually impaired kids?
Once we had the script ready, we took a conscious call that we will not take models and we started to see special kids across India, especially in Maharashtra. A lot of the supporting cast came from Patiala, Chandigarh, Kullu, while the lead girl, whose name is Drishti, is from Mumbai. They were first selected and then taken to an acting workshop where they did 3-4 sessions. That’s how they were selected and trained. 

Please tell us about the composition of the song ‘Beh Chala’ playing in this ad film. What is the role of music in such a campaign?
There were two things that we wanted to do. One was making a emotional connect with the customers and second was to show the trouble that we go through because in remote areas it is not as easy as the cities, and so we displayed crossing a river, getting stuck among animals, a tree blocking the road and such sort of things. We wanted to show our journey and under that journey we wanted to use a song that communicated the state of mind of the engineer. It’s a state of mind that is reflected in the song and the lyrics will poetically tell you about a person going through the course of nature, because he intends to bring happiness to whoever has called him. The second song was from the girl who was a finalist with a singing reality show. ‘Beh Chala’ became a famous pick-up for people on Twitter and YouTube.

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