It was a straightforward ceremony last night at the Oscars… until Ellen DeGeneres got her phone out to take a selfie with a group of Hollywood stars – which crashed Twitter.
*That* picture – featuring Lupita Nyong’o; Meryl Streep; Jared Leto; Brad Pitt; Jennifer Lawrence and many more – was retweeted more than 1.7 million times in less than an hour. Needless to say it’s a social media record. Not even the President can win this race, following his re-election tweet in November 2012.
So, with all the coverage pick up Samsung has secured – including in The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and Sky News – how will it use the stunt to its advantage?
This is a marketing opportunity that doesn’t fall in brands’ laps very often so it has to go in hard. If it doesn’t then its PR team will also win a title: Oscar-winning idiots.
I’m surprised that the @samsungUK or @samsungUSA Twitter accounts haven’t directly tweeted about the photo to further promote the fact that it was taken on one of its handsets. Glancing through their accounts and searching through the social media site, they’ve not even tried to effectively lay claim on this global achievement. Don’t get me wrong, lots is being said but it’s the fans that are doing the hard work. If I was in charge, I’d be maximising brand presence by encouraging those late to the party to retweet.
What I’d like to see is Samsung use the image, in some form, across a reactive campaign that implies that the Galaxy Note 3 model ‘fits all your friends in’ or ‘never misses a prize moment’ – to allow new customers to really interact with the brand.
Going one step further, Samsung could attempt to coin a new phrase. Selfies may have been the Oxford Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’ in 2013, but perhaps the mobile and tablet division could use the term ‘filmie‘ for the first time – an image packed with famous film stars.
What do you think? Is it a trend that will catch on?