Samsung’s activation around its partnership with the Coachella Music Festival in California, which included the launch of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge devices, was detailed by Samsung Head of Experiential Marketing Derrin Woodhouse and AEG Senior VP/Global Partnerships Andrew Klein on Day 1 of the ’15 Intersport Brand Engagement Summit. During a session billed as “What Sports Marketers Can Learn From,” Woodhouse said, “Coachella is a massive audience and we really want to give our consumers a touch point to experience our products. There were more than 570,000 people who attended Coachella.” Woodhouse outlined how the brand created two tents to cater to different attendees. One tent, the Samsung Galaxy Experience, allowed all attendees to experience Samsung products. Only those who owned a Samsung device had access to the second tent, a VIP Samsung Owners Lounge that had an open-bar, food, air conditioning and enhanced experiences. “People were showcasing their Samsung phone like it was a badge of honor,” Klein said. "Coachella is where we want to be,” said Woodhouse. “It’s speaking to our audience: young people, tech adopters. The millennial audience is at Coachella. I was surprised by the continuing flow of guests to our space. The engagement with our products never slowed during the entire event.”
Quick Hit:
* Klein, on ambush marketing at the event: “We are seeing an obnoxious amount of ambushing around Coachella. We are trying hard to stop that and we have a team focused just on preventing that.”
Quick Facts:
* There were 1.6 billion views on Snapchat stories for the '15 event.
* H&M and Coachella launched the “H&M Loves Coachella” global clothing line this year. The line sold out in its first week on sale.
* Coachella’s brand partners are: Heineken, NRG, JBL, Glasses.com, Pernod Ricard, Red Bull, YouTube, T-Mobile, Mio, Samsung, Starwood and American Express. Ten of the 12 partners captured original content during the event.
