Company: Racepoint Global, Boston, MA
Company Description: Racepoint Global is an integrated marketing communications agency at the intersection of influence and action.
Nomination Category: Live Events Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Public Relations Event

Nomination Title: Racepoint Global for Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center

Entry:

With only a six-week turnaround time, Racepoint Global was tasked with launching the first full scale project from the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC) group – The Samsung Digital Health Initiative. This initiative is comprised of a combination of hardware and software technologies designed to drive developers, healthcare professionals, academics and health enthusiasts to work together to create a healthier world. The challenge of this launch was correctly articulating Samsung’s project. We needed to be clear … Samsung was not announcing a product; this was a platform.

Prior to the launch event, Racepoint identified and personally invited more than 100 local, and selective domestic healthcare and consumer tech reporters and analysts to attend. After weeks of personal outreach to reporters, via email and phone, Racepoint had secured a top tier list of attendees at the event. Within that subset, Racepoint highlighted the top dozen outlets to join an exclusive “Media Roundtable” with Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer at Samsung, following the formal launch.

Racepoint identified and finalized a target media and influencer list and worked with Racepoint’s creative team to design a digital and hard copy event invitation. The team was also charged with developing a visual dialogue for the end-to-end messaging strategy in conjunction with partners for a fully integrated campaign. Afterwards, Racepoint moved to implement their social media plan along with the launch the @SamsungSSIC, @VoiceoftheBody and #VOTB handles and hashtags to intrigue the audience.

The results were phenomenal. More than 83 media and analysts at top-tier outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Yonhap News Agency, Reuters, USA Today, Bloomberg News, CNET, AFP, Wirtschaftswoche, WIRED and others attended the event. The team attracted the media and more than 300 guests to a venue Racepoint selected in downtown San Francisco for an experiential event, which was also managed from a worldwide live stream by the team. Additionally, Racepoint built a custom microsite generated buzz, hosted content and helped sustain the post-event conversation.

Racepoint’s guidance helped Samsung to trump other global competitors announcing its plans for the Digital Health market prior first. As far as media coverage went, the event sparked 556 articles in 48 hours with nine news broadcast outlets which ran the story and 6.8 million Twitter impressions to spread the word. Overall, the launch generated more than 159 unique articles and 1,077 pieces of coverage through syndication, resulting in a total of 1,236 articles.

The media roundtable which was about the company’s expansion into the digital health space with Samsung President Young Sohn, was attended by 12 reporters. Twenty eight broadcast segments aired around the news, including interviews with Bloomberg TV, NBC and BBC. The announcement had a significant presence on social media, earning more than 7 million impressions from 1,952 Twitter mentions by 713 users.

Following the launch, SSIC received more than 400 inbound inquiries from companies – both in attendance and not – who were interested in working more closely with Simband and SAMIIO. Since the May event, Samsung has worked with dozens of innovate startups to enable the next generation of digital health.