Title	SAMSUNG MAESTROS ACADEMY
Brand	SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS ITALY
Product/Service	SAMSUNG CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
Category	A02. NON-FICTION: SERIES OR FILM
Entrant Company	LEO BURNETT Milan, ITALY
Contributing Company	LEO BURNETT Milan, ITALY
Media Agency	STARCOM MEDIAVEST GROUP Milan, ITALY
Production Company	MAGNOLIA Milan, ITALY

Name	Company	Position
Mark Tutssel	LEO BURNETT CO. CHICAGO USA	Global Chief Creative Director
Francesco Bozza/Alessandro Antonini	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Executive Creative Director
Christopher Jones/Anna Meneguzzo/Cristiano Tonnarelli	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Creative Directors
Paolo Boccardi	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Digital Creative Director
Alice Jasmine Crippa	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Copywriter
Gianluca Ignazzi/Alessia Casini	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Art Directors
Joseph Menda/Cristina Bissanti/Felipe Iglesias/Gaia Barison/Alberto Lot/Lia Paga	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Creative Team
Ornella Vittorioso	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Planner
Andrea Castiglioni/Francesco Loprete	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Project Managers
Riccardo Biancorosso/Gaia Fusaro	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Producers
Alberto Maderna	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Mock/Up Artist
Giada Cioffi	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Art Buyer
Maria Teresa Genovese	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Pr Coordinator
Niccolò Arletti	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Managing Director
Elena Korzhenevich	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Brand Leader
Luca Ruspini/Davide Nava	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Account Supervisors
Federica Giacomotti	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Account Manager
Gianluca Mori	LEO BURNETT CO. MILAN ITALY	Technical Director
Michele Rho		Film Director

The Campaign

The Italian market has historically been characterized by a strong penetration and a massive investment in traditional media. Branded Content is a growing phenomenon strongly related to the widespread diffusion of digital devices such as smartphones and tablets. Companies, especially for brand awareness issues, still prefer to plan on traditional media. On the other hand the economic crisis pushes towards digital investments but the conversational nature of the web is still a strong deterrent for the spreading branded content along digital medias. Actually the problem is the increasing mass of the elusive consumers. This is why it is crucial to use alternative tactics to engage them on non-traditional media. Our market is still small when considered in terms of absolute value but potentially interesting for ads investments.

Results

Samsung is a leading technology brand whose marketing approach has always focused on launching products and features. As a result people are clear on what the brand does, but not to its higher “human” mission. The main objective of the project was to humanize the brand to the world. To do that we leveraged on Samsung’s core values: to design technological products able to launch people, to amplify their experiences and to accelerate their possibilities in real life. Samsung believes that technology becomes meaningful only when it’s in the hands of people. To bring to life the Samsung strategic role of “enabler” in people’s life, we looked at the current social situation in Italy: the disappearance of great handcrafting excellences which once brought Italy to greatness. On the other side unemployment rate among young people is dramatically growing, and younger generations are yearning for new opportunities to discover and express their potential and talent. Our idea aims to reconnect two generations preserving the future of “Made in Italy” and fostering a new generation of Italian artisans. We want to demonstrate that talents together with Samsung products can lead to great success. We created Samsung Maestros Academy: the first digital conservatory where young talents can learn the secrets of “Made in Italy” masters, through every kind of smart-device, learning how to preserve and innovate the greatest Italian heritage. The online training platform features more than 40 video-tutorials, full of invaluable ancient secrets, in-depth downloadable educational material and live-interactive lessons, where students can interact with the Maestros, asking questions, submitting ideas and receiving tips in real-time. Live-chats generated a co-creation process between the two generations that ended up with the development of innovative design items and great success-stories, that inspired Discovery Italia to produce a 12 episodes series: our TV branded content.

Our target audience was led through contents thanks to teasing promos campaign on digital channels (FB, Italian newspapers’ and lifestyle magazines websites, Confartigianato’s social channels, LinkedIn, Twitter) and a further release of brand stories broadcasted on Discovery Italia channels as Real Time and Dmax, for a total of 12 episodes broadcasted 2 times per week. Our video contents were also spread on TV and helped us enlarge our audience and became more and more outstanding on our, and other, digital platforms (for example: Realtimetv.it, dmax.it).

The stories of Maestros’ students, reached over 6 million TV-viewers, in Italy alone. After Maestro Pelizzoli’s course, Alice created a truly innovative bike, featured during the Milan Design Week event and on great international blogs. The results achieved by many other students generated over 30 million media-impressions and reaching over 3 million people on Twitter, on Italian market alone. As a result, the applications received by our Maestros exceeded the available positions by 300%, only in the first week, generating constant hiring opportunities for other artisans in the field. In this way Maestros communicated the crucial relevance of Samsung products in facilitating the sharing of knowledge and reinforced the perception of a brand focused on great improvements in people’s life. Our Maestros were invited by many Italian universities to lecture, such as “Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi”, “Università degli studi di Roma Tor Vergata” and even by Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Now the greatest Italian Handicraft Federation is supporting a b-phase of the initiative, proposing as Maestros young innovative artisans and developing hiring strategies for the best Maestros students. Maestros has also become an offline master-course at IED Milan, offering 12 full-scholarships and a one-year course.