Entire Town Learns Sign Language In Viral Stunt For Samsung’s Hearing Impaired Conference Service

The tech brand orchestrates an elaborate stunt to promote its video conferencing service.

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I wouldn’t know what living life as a hearing impaired person is like. Because, well, I can hear.

And while there is sign language and other forms of communication a hearing impaired person can use going through the day, most hearing people do not know sign language. And therein lies the problem for a hearing impaired person. Well, at least from this hearing person’s perspective.

But what if a hearing impaired person could go through their entire day and everyone with whom they came into contact knew sign language? Well, that’s exactly what happened to Istanbul resident Muharrem.

Working with Leo Burnett, Samsung spent a month setting up a stunt that involved the placement of cameras in Muharrem’s neighborhood, training everyone with whom Muharrem would come into contact how to communicate using sign language and colluding with Muharrem’s sister who helped orchestrate the big day.

Muharrem is quite shocked by the encounters and becomes every emotional at the end of the day when the stunt is revealed. Of course, this stuff rarely happens out of the goodness of a brand’s heart.

While I’m sure Samsung had Muharrem’s best interests at heart, at the end of the day, the stunt is a branded promotion. But the stunt is in perfect concert with what the brand was promoting; a video conferencing service for the hearing impaired.

Since being uploaded on March 3, the video has “gone viral” and has been viewed 3.7 million times.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Steve Hall
Contributor
Steve Hall is a marketing professional, publisher, writer, community manager, photographer and all-around lover of advertising.

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