Full Circle: Can Samsung Help the Public Get Hands on with AI?

A drone show, a playful twist on a design icon, and a prime time Saturday night TV takeover - Samsung is kicking off 2024 with a burst of energy and it’s all in service of one thing: artificial intelligence.

The latest line of their flagship smartphone range, the Galaxy S24, launches this week and comes packed with a host of AI features. From ‘Live Translate’ (which simultaneously translates phone conversations - allowing you to easily converse with someone speaking a different language to your own), to ‘Circle to Search’ (which takes visual search to the next level by allowing users to simply circle the specific object in a photo that you want to find out more about), and a whole bunch of other utilities, there’s a lot of new tech and tools designed to open up the world for people, helping them to be more productive and creative. 

That’s the promise - and the challenge for Annika Bizon, marketing and omnichannel director at Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland, and her team is to get people excited about it and to show its utility and relevance. Artificial intelligence might be a buzz phrase that’s getting the marketing world hyped up, but there’s no guarantee that the general public feels the same way. For some, it’s the stuff of sci-fi, and for others it’s perceived as off-putting technical jargon.

When it came to figuring out how to make marketing that mattered, the starting point was to really dig into consumer behaviour.

“We’ve got six research centres around the world, what do they want to see? And how do we also make it as simplified as possible? The top things that come up are: search, voice and simplification,” says Annaka. “The obvious question is, okay, how do you tell people this and how do you make it simple, because AI is the message but, in the same way as banking, how do I make these things make sense to the consumer?”

There’s a lot of possibilities packed into the new features - Annika talks with excitement about what she sees as the potential to unleash people’s potential with tools, like advanced photo editing but rather than rushing consumers with everything at once, they’re focusing on a few select features, with manageable, easy-to-replicate behaviours.

For the main campaign the brand is focused on the ‘Circle to Search’ feature. “‘The Circle’ is going to be our hero in our main campaign, and our campaign is basically going to reach 90% of the population within the first seven days. So it’s the heaviest weight campaign we have ever taken to market,” she explains. 

As well as the hero TV campaign, ‘The Circle’ will also show up across multiple touchpoints, from prime time slot on Saturday night with spokesperson Fleur East to launching a circular-themed drone show in London with Taylor Herring and St Marks Studios.

One of the more playful activations is a collaboration with Transport for London, which they hope will reach new audiences. For two weeks, they’ll be renaming the Circle Line the ‘Circle to Search Line’ and turning the iconic London Underground map into a circle. On top of that, they’ll be taking over King’s Cross tube station with Samsung ambassadors who can show commuters what they can do with AI.

“We’re going to be dominating Kings Cross around this, so King’s Cross will be our hero destination. Eleven million people go through the Circle Line every two weeks. So [we’ll be] explaining the journey and having some people from our team, trainers, to explain the tech and answer any questions people have. So that’s how we’re, very simply, taking consumers on this journey - literally on a journey around the tube!”

Those human-to-human interactions will be key to the success of this launch. Annika is a big believer in the power of putting the product into people’s hands, of in-person experience. It’s something that the team have built on from last year, where they created in-store selfie booths and a selfie competition to encourage people to pick up the innovative Samsung Galaxy Flip phones, to get their heads and hands around the unusual product.

“We’re taking some of the learnings from the selfie campaign and we’re bringing that back. We have our biggest Galaxy Unpacked experience at Westfied where people can come down, touch and feel the devices understand how they work. Not only that but the Galaxy buses are driving around the county, showing the product, because I think the more people touch this stuff, the more they’re involved in it and how it works for them, the better it'll be,” says Annika.

 “We’re forecasting three and a half thousand people a day into our Westfield base, so it’s really exciting. For me, this is everything we’ve done but on such an epic scale, because AI and our new step into the space deserves that.”

Amplifying all of that for those who can’t get to London or to the Galaxy buses around the UK are Samsung spokespeople, presenter Fearne Cotton and footballer Raheem Sterling - who this time round will be joined by science communicator and celebrity mathematician, Dr Hannah Fry. She’s a slightly different kind of ambassador, but one who can really bring her skills to the fore to help Samsung explain the tech in an accessible way.

“All this stuff needs demystifying, and I’m really passionate about having the right people talking in the right way and having that conversation,” says Annika on working with Dr Hannah Fry. We know that she’s got huge credibility, she speaks in an authentic way, and she helps take us on this journey. It doesn’t need to be scary, it doesn’t need to be confusing - actually, this is what it does for you and this is what it does in your hand.”

They’ll also be heading over to Fortnite where they’ve taken a pre-existing partnership to the next level, creating an in-game arcade packed with minigames that demonstrate some of the AI features. With the last collaboration, around the Galaxy Foldables, they found they had 28 minutes worth of game time, and now they’ve upped the ante. Annika predicts that roughly ten million people will play for the time they’re on.

As a cheeky bonus, it will also let Annika and the team gauge how they’re going with the campaign in general. “We know that gamers love to talk, right? So the good thing about that is they give us real time feedback around what they like, what they don't like -  and I love that,” she says.

It’s a full-on launch - Annika and the team want to make it as simple, accessible and omnipresent as possible. And with such a huge launch there are bound to be challenges - not least, she laughs, planning a drone show two weeks after the country was hit by gale force winds. 

But by far the biggest challenge has been to showcase the power and potential of these AI innovations in a way that makes sense to consumers.

“For me, that’s the number one thing because you can have the best innovation, you can have the best technology, but I’ve got to translate that from technology into consumer behaviour. We have been working on that so tirelessly. We need to be really clear, really understand the consumer behaviour behind that and then address it in the right way. To be honest, it’s in the DNA, we have literally lived by for the last couple of months because everything about this is about the consumer. Everything about this is about simplification. Everything about this is about giving people the opportunity to have technology work for them and work for them in a way that means they can have more time to do the things they love.”