Although the global Olympic campaign is localized in every country, it proved hard to find real relevance in local markets.

As a leader in innovation, Samsung's brand promise "Do what you can’t" needed to be made tangible and valuable for the Dutch audience.

Therefore, our brief was to create a sponsorship campaign for a Dutch Olympic team that would strengthen Samsung Mobile’s brand position locally.

In essence, we had to transform a global brand sponsorship into one of national pride.

Strategy: As a sponsor of a team, you can hope for success. But as a partner and tech brand saying Do What You Can’t, why not help athletes to be successful?

Instead of creating a traditional sponsorship campaign where brands just add their logo, we developed a technological tool with Samsung’s innovations to help one Olympic team in their pursuit of Olympic gold.

But what team and sport to choose?

In recent years, 3x3 basketball has rapidly become the world's leading urban team sport.

Worthy de Jong, a former well-known Dutch 5x5 basketball player with deep ties to the basketball culture, joined the emerging 3x3 basketball scene in 2022, boosting the chances of going to Paris and winning a gold medal. That’s where we saw an opportunity.

3x3 has its unique streetball rules to create a spectacular and innovative game. As the name suggests, 3x3 basketball features two teams of three players competing against each other. Games last for ten minutes or until a team reaches 21 points.

Without having a court-side coach, it’s the player's responsibility to make the right choice and the right time. In this fast and furious Olympic sport, everything revolves around teamwork, adaptability, and quick decision-making.

Insight: After analyzing many games, we first found out that 90% of the games are lost in the last 90 seconds, because that’s when accuracy plummets. Secondly, with no coach courtside and fatigue setting in, it's up to the players on the court to make the right decisions in a split-second.

These decisions were based on gut feeling, without any training data or intelligence to rely on. So, we needed to find an innovative solution to help the players maintain their accuracy right up until the final second of the game, no matter the circumstances.

Creative Idea: To provide the Dutch Olympics team an edge, we conceived and developed ShotControl, an AI-powered sports analytics tool that provides the 3x3 basketball players with detailed information about their performance.

The tool enables coaches and players to understand from which precise spot on the court they have the greatest accuracy as fatigue sets in during a match.

ShotControl is a sophisticated AI tracking system that offers a user-friendly interface, providing athletes and coaches with a comprehensive view of game performance, from macro-level insights to micro-level details.

Using multiple stereoscopic (3d-) cameras and Galaxy devices, we are able to map the movements of each athlete and ball on the court.

On a custom built app on their Samsung Galaxy Fold phones, athletes can use filters and range sliders to manipulate a real-time updating heatmap.

This allows them to real-time track their shooting accuracy and compare it with their location on the field, their heart rate (fatigue) at the time of the shot, and at what time on the game clock the shot was taken. By understanding their strengths and weaknesses in these high-pressure situations, athletes can make more informed decisions and improve their overall game.

Impact & Results: The 3x3 Dutch basketball team won gold in a thrilling final. In the last seconds of overtime, Worthy de Jong moved to the right side of the court, took the shot, and nailed a 2-pointer. When we reviewed the data from ShotControl, we found that this exact spot was one of the most accurate shooting locations on the heatmap.

The unique sponsorship delivered significant benefits to the brand: - 70+ million media impressions - Samsung’s market share (in value) went up +0.8% compared to Q2 2024. - Strengthening Samsung’s No.1 market share position with 50.9%, with Apple far behind (33.9%) as the biggest competitor.

Beyond the gold medals and rising brand metrics, the true success of this partnership lies in making the sport bigger than the innovation. Before the Olympics, many had never heard of 3x3 basketball, but now it's one of the most talked-about sports in the Netherlands, inspiring more people to play and watch it.

Last but not least, Worthy de Jong, who was previously ranked the third-best 3x3 player in the world, rose to number one right directly after the games. Paving the way for Samsung to showcase to the nation the impact of innovation and dedication.