The smartphone market is more competitive than ever. In a highly crowded category, we were tasked with launching the new Galaxy Note9, retailing at $1000. With its advanced power, speed and battery capabilities, previous models in the Galaxy Note range had been marketed as devices for business. However, to kick-start sales we needed to find a way to reposition the new Note9. So we turned to the fastest growing consumer group of 2018: mobile gamers. We discovered the same features that made the Note9 a great phone for business also made it a great phone for mobile gamers; with 65% indicating that battery life and processing power would influence their smartphone choice.

To capture gamers’ attention we didn’t make a campaign we made a character in the world's biggest game—Fortnite. 200+ million players regularly spend big bucks on outfits and characters, called ‘skins.’ The rarer the skin, the bigger the bragging rights. So to launch the new Galaxy Note9, Samsung and Fortnite partnered to create a whole new character in the game: The Galaxy Skin. The skin incorporated the brand’s colors and name and the only way to unlock it was to purchase the new Note9. To build hype, we gave the skin to the world's biggest gamer before anyone else. Ninja debuted the skin to 20 million viewers on YouTube and played with the character live on Twitch for his 13 million subscribers.

The Galaxy Skin immediately became the most-hyped and most-wanted skin in Fortnite. Social mentions of Samsung in gaming increased by 2000% and mentions of the Galaxy Note9 jumped by 873%—in a single day. Overall search traffic for Note9 increased +97% with 95% average positive sentiment across the influencer content. Gamers were obsessed with the Galaxy Skin and they’d do anything to get it. They even attempted to download it from demo Note9 phones in retail stores. A re-sale market opened up on eBay and gamers sold the skin for as much as $7000. But most importantly, Galaxy Note9 pre-orders increased by 243% amongst 18-24 year-olds and we got fans of our competitors in-store and hands-on with the Note9 like never before. The Galaxy Skin was used in over 25 million games of Fortnite, per month, worldwide, and generated 2.6 billion impressions.