Produced by The One Club for Creativity, the global awards show is judged by top industry professionals and honors the best creative ideas that are setting new industry standards. Samsung has been recognized in both the ADC Annual Awards¹, the oldest continuously running industry awards show in the world and The One Show², one of the most prestigious awards competitions in advertising, design, interactive and branded entertainment.

The commercial, which has also won awards at Cannes Lions, the Clio Awards and the D&AD Awards, features an ostrich who learns to fly after donning a Samsung Gear VR headset and launching a virtual flight simulator. The campaign taps into the basic human urge to push beyond what is normal and demonstrates the company’s commitment to providing products and services that allow people to break boundaries and do the incredible.

“‘Ostrich’ shows the very real, human-centric story of how bold action can defy barriers. This focus on creating human value through our technology is at the core of our global marketing program and it is exciting to see it resonate with audiences as well as our peers,” said Pio Schunker, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Brand Marketing, Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “We’re honored to receive this recognition from one of the world’s leading non-profit organizations celebrating creative excellence.”

To-Date “Ostrich” Has Received the Following Awards:

The One Show Awards 2018

• Gold Pencil: Craft – Visual Effects / Single
• Gold Pencil: Craft – Direction / Single
• Gold Pencil: Craft – Animation / Single
• Silver Pencil: Online / Short Form – Single
• Bronze Pencil: Television / Long Form – Single

One Club ADC Award 2018

• Gold Pencil: Craft – Cinematography – Single
• Gold Pencil: Online – Mobile/Online Video – Single
• Gold Pencil: Craft – Film Animation – Single
• Gold Pencil: Craft – Film/Special Effects – Single
• Silver Pencil: Television – Film/Online Video Commercials/Online Commercial – Single
• Silver Pencil: Craft – Film Direction – Single
• Bronze Pencil: Craft – Special Effects – Single
• Bronze Pencil: Craft – Special Effects – Single

D&AD 2018

• Yellow Pencil: Film Advertising Crafts – Special Effects for Film Advertising
• Graphite Pencil: Film Advertising – TV Commercials 61-120 seconds
• Wood Pencil: Film Advertising Craft – Use of Music for Film Advertising

Cannes Lions 2017

• Golden Lion: Film Craft – Direction
• Golden Lion: Film Craft – Visual Effects
• Golden Lion: Film Craft – Animation
• Silver Lion: Film
• Silver Lion: Film Craft – Use of Licensed / Adapted Music
• Bronze Lion: Cyber
• Bronze Lion: Entertainment

Clio Awards 2017

• Gold Winner: Film – Short Form
• Silver Winner: Film Technique – Cinematography
• Silver Winner: Film Technique – Direction
• Silver Winner: Film Technique – Visual Effects
• Bronze Winner: Film Technique – Editing
• Bronze Winner: Film Technique – Licensed Music

London International Awards (LIA) 2017

• Gold Statue: Music & Sound – Use of Licensed Music
• Gold Statue: TV/Cinema/Online Film: Electronic Equipment
• Gold Statue: Production & Post-Production – Visual Effects
• Gold Statue: Production & Post-Production – CGI Animation
• Silver Statue: Production & Post-Production – Direction
• Bronze Statue: Production & Post-Production – Cinematography
• Bronze Statue: Music & Sound – Sound Editing

¹ The ADC Annual Awards is the oldest continuously running industry award show in the world. Now in its 97th year, these Awards celebrate the very best in advertising, design, illustration, photography, packaging, motion and digital media, all with a focus on craftsmanship and innovation.

² The One Show Awards, now in its 45^th year is one of the most prestigious awards competitions in advertising, design, interactive and branded entertainment.

Samsung Electronics was recognized as the most creative marketer of 2016 by the Cannes LIONS International Festival of Creativity, the largest gathering of worldwide creative communications professionals and advertisers. The “Creative Marketer of the Year” award is awarded to companies that have made creative and meaningful strides in marketing.

Terry Savage, Chairman, Lions Festivals, said, “When you look at Samsung’s wins at Cannes Lions, even just last year, what strikes you is the diversity of Lions that they are taking home through their overarching commitment to creativity. They’re excelling across the board, including in areas such as healthcare communications, craft and branded content, as well as picking up a Titanium Lion.”

Samsung has steadily refined its marketing approach to a more consumer-centric strategy, which focuses on how its products and technologies can create meaning in the lives of consumers. For example, Samsung’ campaigns in 2015 include ‘Look at Me’ for autistic children, ‘Safety Truck’ for road safety, ‘Every Day is Day One’ for athletes, and ‘Center Stage’ for an enhanced consumer retail experience. To earn these prestigious honours, Samsung collaborated with world-class creative agencies including Cheil Worldwide, Leo Burnett and 72&Sunny.

“We believe that our innovations open opportunities for people to reach higher and dream bigger,” said Moonsoo Kim, Executive Vice President of Global Marketing Center at Samsung Electronics. “At Samsung, enriching people’s lives is at the center of everything we do, and our marketing reflects this philosophy.”

The 63rd International Festival of Creativity is where the world’s companies come together to challenge their creativity in advertising, publicity and marketing campaigns in many different categories. Hosted annually in Cannes, France, this year’s events will be held from June 18 to 25, 2016, and will be attended by more than 15,000 delegates from over 95 countries.

The Samsung Smart Play-Board is an experimental new educational device that helps parents and teachers better understand children’s development through play.

This concept product was created by Pietro Rigamonti, a student in the Samsung Maestros Academy Master’s Degree Course at IED (Istituto Europeo di Design). The Samsung Maestros Academy is an online workshop operated by Samsung, designed to build bridges between master artisans and the younger generation, and help develop a new generation of craftspeople in Italy.

The Samsung Play-Board project was developed with a team of scientific endorsers from the University of Macerata and the Product & Solutions team of Samsung Italy. The Department of Humanities at the University of Macerata is currently conducting beta testing in various preschools.

A prototype of the Samsung Play-Board received accolades at the 2015 Milan Design Week and the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Unlocking the Full Potential of Children

The Samsung Play-Board is an educational play platform designed as a learning guide for both parents and teachers, underpinned by the insights gained from monitoring children’s actions and characteristics… plus it’s also fun to play with!

Insights and analyses derived from children playing with the board help teachers and parents to design a method of learning that is unique and tailored for each child. This is important because children learn to have confidence in their own abilities in their formative years. This makes it absolutely crucial for children to realize their potential at an early age, develop it, and see it nurtured by people they can trust.

How the Samsung Smart Play-Board Works

1. Children can interact and arrange wooden modules while they play.
2. Vibrant colors, differently shaped modules and special “container” modules – where teachers and parents can insert any kind of picture, drawing or flat material – help to stimulate all facets of a child’s intelligence. A virtually endless number of configurations is possible.
3. Interactions with the child are tracked, recorded and logged.
4. This data is relayed to a pre-installed app that visualizes the child’s learning in graphics, which helps to support the educators’ analysis.
5. The app maintains a profile of the child’s development across multiple indicators for intelligence.
6. The app suggests special education programs – called “bridging techniques” – specifically designed to improve detected weaknesses by leveraging on tracked strengths.
7. Parents and teachers optimize education programs based on each child’s individual profile.

What makes the app even more interesting for educators is the fact that the software and hardware are open-source; almost anyone around the world will be able to build a Play-Board from scratch and add new content.

The seemingly endless possibilities of play provide precious information on potential areas of success, and pinpoint areas of weakness. This data is displayed and quantified in a variety of settings. Also, the accumulated data can be used to understand a child’s potential growth and be applied to broader educational use.

The Samsung Smart Play-Board in Action

Shall we try out the board for ourselves? Let’s try the color modules for starters.

First, parents or teachers suggest to the child to plug in the “educational avatar” into the board. Then, they help connect the activity board to the main board.

Now, it’s time for the child to start playing. The child chooses six nature boxes, then fills them with branches, grass or leaves. Next, connect them to the mainboard. Have the child connect the branches and leaves along the grid using the pointer. Children can have fun creating their own patterns.

When the children are done, remove the educational avatar. Data acquired from the play session is sent to a smart application for parents and teachers. It is fast and simple, but also very scientific.

Technology & Design for a Variety of Possibilities

The Samsung Smart Play-Board is a platform that supports teachers and parents, hugely amplifying their capabilities to learn from children’s spontaneous behaviors while avoiding any “prescription” or “judgment”. The pre-installed app gathers data and organizes them into graphs, but doesn’t automate a “judgment”. This is because we believe that this can be done only by a skilled educator who has a broader view of the child and his or her situation. The app is instead intended to sync the tracked data with meaningful tips for better educational activities based on a library developed, updated and reviewed by an international community of educators.

Some people voice concern that technology will stunt the learning capacity of children, by doing all the work and making children passive and dependent. However, like the puzzle games many of us played when we were young, the capacity for problem solving is equally inherent in the Samsung Smart Play-Board, which intends to provide a platform that nurtures possibilities and potential. It all comes down to how technology is used to help us. As the Samsung Smart Play-Board shows, meaningful technology and design open up possibilities for the future of our children.