Samsung’s Fold and Flip launch has been…messy. This year’s Unpacked event was held in South Korea, the tech giant’s home country, therefore its promotional materials were based on Korean culture.
The tech company allowed me to test its new phones at their New York City pop-up last week, ahead of today’s Unpacked webcast, which opened to the public this morning. While Unpacked is being held in South Korea this year, the event promises a “K-culture” experience complete with manicures and interactive picture booths.
The space was cute, however they manicured one of my fingers and took the photo booth prints from me before sending me out the door empty-handed (well, except for that one glossy nail). They said they didn’t want me to distribute the images before the area was accessible to the public, despite the fact that it’s my responsibility to obey embargoes. Ironically, the finest images I took at the event were taken on my iPhone.
The experience felt strange, as though it didn’t live up to its full potential. Unpacked felt the same way.
Young, bright-eyed Gen-Zers — members of a generation that enjoys K-pop and is intrigued about Korean culture — have been featured in marketing for the company’s foldable devices, particularly the Flip phone. In addition, Samsung invited (and most likely paid) a few of the industry’s best artists to Unpacked. Instead of using their enormous power to generate social buzz, sell phones, or simply share Korean culture, Samsung benched its MVPs.
Take, for example, BTS’s Suga. For several years, the Seoul-based septet has been one of Samsung’s most visible marketers, selling BTS-themed phones and headphones in their characteristic purple. Unpacked started with a flypast montage over Seoul set to Suga’s hit “Daechwita.” Thus far, so good.
They played a pre-recorded video of the rapper asking a few basic questions about the Fold roughly 20 minutes into the presentation. Less than three minutes later, the camera moved to Suga, who was sitting in the front row of Unpacked with a bespoke Fold printed with “D-Day” (the name of the solo album he released in April). So, why didn’t Samsung simply hand him a microphone and ask him the questions live? Why didn’t he perform “Daechwita” to kick off the event? We may never find out.
Wonyoung, a member of the girl group IVE, was also present at Unpacked. In a pre-planned segment, she took pictures with Sydney Sweeney but was never presented to the public. Neither was Brazilian diva Anitta or TWICE member Jeongyeon, who sat next to Wonyoung and sat silently.
Anitta and Wonyoung later shared photos from the event on their Instagram stories, but Samsung missed out on the cool points that come with having pop’s biggest stars at your event. Instead, these celebrities were simply unidentified women seated next to Sydney Sweeney.
Stray Kids, an eight-member band with the second best-selling K-pop record ever, stood behind this group of women. Apart from a pre-event red carpet picture opportunity, Samsung made little use of the group’s presence.
That’s especially disappointing given how much of Unpacked was devoted to the Flip5 phone’s capacity to boost your creative expression, particularly with its front-facing selfie camera. Consider Stray Kids finishing out Unpacked with a high-energy live performance while taking selfies on Flip5s (they even have a song called “Cheese,” which would have been perfect). Instead, the livestream ended with a montage of Seoul landmarks set to the tune of Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition,” a nearly 13-year-old song by the Australian band.
It’s impossible to say how much money Samsung lost by letting these stars sit and observe instead of appealing to their talents — for example, those hypothetical Stray Kids selfies, which would have received tremendous interaction on social media.
It’s a ridiculous blunder for Samsung, especially given that Apple recently convinced K-most Pop’s promising new act, NewJeans, to film an entire music video on their iPhone.
There is always next year.