The Epic launch of Samsung’s S23 and Book3 Series

When Samsung appointed us to engage with 23,000 retail and contact centre partners ahead of the launch of its new Galaxy S23 Series in February 2023, we knew we had our work cut out for ourselves. But, we understand the landscape – as retail brand engagement experts, we know the focus and teamwork that goes into designing and organising a heavily embargoed national training summit, interactive product demonstrations and a month-long awareness campaign.

And so our countdown to retail launch began…

Working under a project code name to ensure maximum security, we hunted for a suitable venue for the National Training Summit, liaised with the Samsung internal training team, and prepared for the arrival of 218 delegates from the UK, Ireland and India.

Focusing on training the trainers, we designed and built the event proposition to highlight the features of the new devices, immerse the teams and, importantly, create excitement ahead of the embargoed training for our retail field sales consultants and contact centre advisors.

Our partners worked with us to build a full production keynote main stage and training experience zones, including Photography Playground and Gaming with Galaxy.

Day 1 of the National Training Summit and it’s all on hands-on deck. Nine experts (including our own Pulse agency Head of Strategy Connor Triggs) kicked off the event with high-impact keynote presentations.

Anticipation built as our Blue Square Samsung product experts, Luke Norbury and Charlotte Kaleda, unveiled the new Galaxy S23 Series and Galaxy Book3 Series on stage. Later, our Blue Square hosts seeded 450 devices with over 200 attendees to prepare them for the embargoed training.

Day 2 of the National Training Summit, the Samsung training team hosted discovery workshops, exploring the wonders of the 200-million pixels Galaxy S23 Series in the Photography Playground.

In the Gaming Zone, we showcased the performance enhancements in the new Galaxy S23 Series with a Gaming competition on the LED Wall displays and later experienced the ‘better together’ connected ecosystem with the Galaxy Book3 Series and Samsung S23 Series.

Having created all the training collateral, we now embarked on the mission to educate and inspire Samsung’s 23,000 retail and contact centre partners.

Our omnichannel field teams delivered secure training sessions to give the partners a first look at the new products. The aim was to build knowledge and perfect customer demonstrations ready for when the new devices were unveiled at Samsung Unpacked.

Live from South Korea, the new Galaxy devices were launched to the world through the Samsung Global Unpacked event. Our online e-promoter team stood by.

Across all training touchpoints, the team delivered customer demonstrations and answered queries. We hosted an Unpacked post-event show on Backstage Live and delivered a session to selected field sales consultants and advisors on the new line-up, unveiling highlights, new features and discussion points.

Samsung opened the doors to a supercharged Galaxy Unpacked Experience in Westfield London. Our team of promoters delivered product demonstrations, exploring a variety of exciting interactive concepts such as Nightography in a bespoke photo booth and epic Gaming displays on the Galaxy S23 Series. The event ran until 12 March.

With the new products available for pre-order, all our teams were in action, driving awareness in retail and contact centre settings, delivering virtual and physical training, updating point of sales materials and checking store compliance. We were on the road for two weeks – enjoying the time spent engaging with consumers.

The new Samsung Galaxy S23 Series and Galaxy Book3 Series products were then available. We visited the last of the retailers and contact centres throughout February and March continuing to drive awareness and interaction with customers across all touchpoints.