Samsung Mobile seals Bebo content tie

By Fiona Ramsay, marketingmagazine.co.uk, Wednesday, 27 May 2009 09:45AM

LONDON - Samsung Mobile has signed the UK's biggest branded content partnership with social networking site Bebo to take on Nokia and Sony Ericsson in the music market.

Under the deal, overseen by marketing agency Octagon, Samsung will sponsor and provide music content for Bebo's music homepage. Samsung will also sponsor the website's first offline venture, a series of live music events.

Samsung Bebo Nights will be held at the Gibson Guitar Studio in London. The first gig, open to Bebo's 10m users, is planned for 1 June. The line-up will include acts White Lies and The Maccabees.

Bebo will also roll out a Samsung-branded daily music programme. Produced by Endemol, The Beat Show will feature product placement.

The tie-up is part of Samsung's plan to increase the brand's appeal to 16- to 25-year-old music fans.

Separately, Samsung is holding a pitch for the global advertising launch of a new, as yet unnamed, smart phone.

Leo Burnett Chicago is up against CHI & Partners, Grey London, and Beattie McGuinness Bungay for the business.

It is still to be established how much of Samsung's ad account will be shifted to BMB in the UK after the mobile company's in-house agency, Cheil, bought a stake in the firm.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk