How it started

The mobile landscape in the Philippines is more competitive than ever, with Samsung being challenged by more affordable brands. To continue to design a relevant proposition and targeted marketing campaigns, Samsung Philippines wanted a better understanding of smartphone users, across generations and in every price tier.

How we inspired change

We set up two projects – one focusing on Gen Z, and another on mobile price tiers – both using a three-layered approach:​

• Online community: we invited 120 consumers (100 of whom Gen Z) to participate in a series of activities (2 weeks per project). This provided Samsung a glimpse of their lifestyle, the role of the smartphone in their lives, their habits and shopping journeys.​
• Online focus groups: we ran different online discussion groups to deep dive into their habits and shopping journey, which helped understand the hybrid shopping attitude and identify different personas.​
• Online survey:  We validated our learnings using two surveys (total n=1,617) This resulted in a segmentation based on distinct motivators and habits towards the category and uncovered key drivers for buying a smartphone, purchase influencers and opportunity spaces.

How it lives on

The insights inspired the team to touch on the emotional triggers of their flagship phone, specifically the Flip model. An example is the ‘Samsung Galaxy: Join the flip side’ campaign launched in September 2022, targeting users of competitor brands with strong brand love and loyalty. The learning also encouraged the brand to highlight the balance of functional and emotional benefits of the Samsung smartphone across price tiers.