Case Study / SmartThings

OVERVIEW

The agency was hired to orchestrate the transition of SmartThings from a hardware offering, which always had an app as part of the ecosystem, to a pure app platform.
This was a challenging journey. Technical complications resulted in consumers who had been using the hardware/software connectivity-often for months or even years-finding themselves in the position of losing their saved data and having to establish completely new viewing routines.
This was posing major issues for Samsung, as they were investing a great deal of time and money in the app and were adding functionality at the same time. In addition, there were gaps in customer service, making the situation worse. Consumers were not being heard and were letting their frustrations out on social media. Loudly and continually.

PRACTICE AREAS

Digital Marketing & Social Media Digital PR Integrated Marketing Strategic Planning

STRATEGY

The Phase One analysis revealed that SmartThings lacked a unified content and messaging strategy across all channels. The team immediately created a social media playbook to bring all that together, so that product and brand marketing were aligned.
This enabled compensation for the gap in customer service with intensive communication and community management, thus giving the organization time to catch up. Once this issue was stabilized, the campaign entered a Phase Two program. This consisted of a SmartThings digital brand creative overhaul, moving it from a Samsung "corporate feel" to more engaging social content that showed the fun and entertainment experience of the app in use.

That experience-shaping work included highlights and features of the partners whose content was available on the app, including Hey Google, BOSE, SONOS, and arlo to name a few. At the same time, relevant individuals at SmartThings were featured to humanize the platform.