What brands can learn from Samsung's spontaneous selfie

Before it was officially confirmed, it had already been declared the biggest selfie in history. But Academy Awards host Ellen DeGeneres' star-studded selfie, taken seemingly spontaneously in the middle of the Oscar telecast, was of course actually an ingenious stunt in product placement for Samsung’s Note 3.But behind the stunt, what does this mean for brands and what can marketers learn?On human insightThe selfie is nothing special over this side of the world. I guess most of us have taken at least one selfie snap, maybe more (I know I’m guilty). However, this human behaviour is fairly new to the A-List, mainstream celebrities of the West. Especially Jennifer Lawrence, for whom falling over at the Oscars is fast becoming an annual occurrence. This super celebrity selfie photo has become the most viral–able in history (3 million in Twitter + 1.9 million likes in Facebook in just 1 day). So could this be an encouraging new form of promotion or stunt marketing for brands in the East?On brandSamsung versus Apple is one of the greatest brand battles on earth. True, Samsung Galaxy is an official Oscar sponsor. But the stunt – and it's safe to say it was a stunt, catapulted Samsung into the spotlight and exposed the mobile phone brand to the massive Oscar audience. It’s fair to say, it was a monumental success.The super selfie has ensured the Oscars are trending on social media, and people all over the world have shared it through their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Weibo accounts. It’s a win-win situation.Within minutes of being posted to Twitter the social network crashed momentarily. The image also quickly super-ceded the record holder, which was a picture tweeted by US president Barack Obama hugging his wife, US first lady Michelle Obama, which had recorded 780,000 re-tweets."We crashed and broke Twitter. We made history," DeGeneres said during the broadcast, noting that Twitter's office had contacted the producers to alert them. "It's fantastic. See what we did, Meryl?"And not forgetting, this was also a huge charity fundraiser. Ellen shared that Samsung was, in fact, donating US$3 million to charity since they'd gotten so much exposure at the Oscars.Ellen will divide up the money between St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Humane Society of the United States. Improving brand likeability, encouraging social media sharing, generating enormous amounts of PR and a much improved brand image!On productOne single feature that can trump the iPhone (at the moment) is Samsung Note 3’s big screen. The super selfie at the Oscars was the best way to demonstrate this great feature in front of the world. I can’t think of any other sales video or viral that have even come close to this.While there are many other interesting coincidentals (or not) surrounding the stunt – like how the white Samsung Note 3 matched Ellen’s white suit for instance, or that the selected group of celebrities in the selfie happened to include the winner of best supporting actor and actress… let’s also look how it all nearly back fired…The promotional effort almost took an embarrassing turn when Ellen tweeted before, during and after the event from her trusted iPhone. Indeed, while the selfie featuring Kevin Spacey, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lawrence taken on her Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phone was an undoubted success, the gloss was rubbed off when DeGeneres posted photos online from her iPhone, such as one selfie with actor Channing Tatum.While Samsung have not responded publicly yet to the mild embarrassment of DeGeneres' mix-and-matching of smartphones, they still have the huge publicity that the A-list selfie generated.This aside, no one can take away from the fact that this was brave, out-of-the box stunt. It’s an example of using human insights to boost your brand promise, it’s well executed through traditional media, which travelled seamlessly across social media, plus it has a goodwill element. I’d say that’s a wrap!Brands don’t have to opt for the same boring use of media. If you have the right idea and the right channel, or the right celebrity endorsing your product in a new and interesting way, the results can be huge.http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/enews/realtime/20140303/52242908Some interesting information/figures*Samsung ran six commercials with a total of 270 seconds of ad time during this year Oscar, excluding the product placement time at the showThat’s roughly about US$1.8 million spent on each spot. Samsung could have spent around US$20 million during the Oscar all togetherThe Super Selfie has been retweeted more than 3 million times – compared to President Barack Obama ‘s 780,000 times after his re-election in November 2012The brand Samsung was mentioned 900 times per minute on social media at one pointEllen DeGeners agreed to make a donation to her favourite charities for every retweet at US$1; Samsung is donating US$3m to be split between the Humane Society and St.Jude Children’s Research HospitalSourcesThe Wall Street Journal (Online), Advertising Age (Online), Bloomberg (Online), CelebrityNetworth.com, Nelsen (TV rating).Valiant Yip is business director and head of LIVE, DDB Group Hong Kong.