How SAMSUNG Helps Black Cats

As a happy owner of a very beautiful and smart black cat, I couldn't ignore a Samsung's post on Facebook "Black Cat Selfies on GS5". Now you may ask me "What's the main idea and why are you writing about it?" 

(Actually it was posted in August, 2014 but I noticed it just yesterday)

  

 

Well. In 2014, the RSPCA* (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) proclaimed that 70% of all abandoned cats are black, or they have black and white fur. The RSPCA has explained that it happens because our "selfie generation" is spurning one-coloured cats since "they don't look good in photos". Stop. Are you serious?

Samsung New Zealand and Colenso BBDO preferred not to remain apathetic and created a genius social campaign "that offered a practical solution for all vat lovers whilst at the same time highlighting features of their latest smartphone, the Samsung GS5".

Thanks to Rachael Hale McKenna (a photographer who has become famous for her quirky and delightful photos of babies and animals), Samsung managed a photo-shoot that pointed out the possibility to take better photos of black cats. So, this social campaign encouraged people to resolve the problem of abandoned and unwanted black cats. 

Rachael Hale McKenna used the Samsung Galaxy S5 to take extremely pretty photos and created an instructional video that was placed on Samsung New Zealand Facebook page.

The results are the following: over 33,500 views, 4,264 likes, 1,183 shares, and 570 comments. As for the comments, lets check them out:

Indeed, I must admit that the formulation of an existing problem is a little bit dubious. No doubt, the word "selfie" is performing miracles on the Internet. In my opinion, according to the common sense the most obvious explanation of this cruel behavior is a well-known superstition, and there is nothing about "the bad selfie theory". As Liza Adams noticed, "Advertisers will say anything to get their ads to go viral" which means that people are becoming more and more educated on social media and are able to observe a nasty trick. Nevertheless, the campaign was successful and many black cats were adopted.

As you can see, SAMSUNG took care of the carefully designed tips on "How to take a great black cat photo". Let's take a look:

"Black Cats allowed us to use the flexible, real time nature of social conversations to our advantage. With the gap between branded content creation and consumer consumption growing wider, brands need to creatively find ways integrate themselves into existing consumer conversations"

Neville Doyle, planning director

Absolutely, that very post outstands with its nontrivial and unpredictable idea and grabs people's attention. Moreover, it doesn't matter if you do like cats or don't. You'll obediently read a post like that one. A Samsung's example perfectly illustrates how important it is to notice "a smart balance between subtle promotion, emotions, and relevancy". Just "find one fun thing that ties into your brand and use it to add value to the conversation".

 

P.S. Top 10 reasons to adopt a black cat