Samsung Australia gives away 101 Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G smartphones in national treasure hunt
Samsung has launched a $200k national treasure hunt, giving away 101 of its most expensive smartphones, and clues could be right in front of you.
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The world’s biggest smartphone maker, Samsung, is giving away more than $200,000 worth of its top-of-the-line 5G handsets in a nationwide treasure hunt launched just one week after the device arrived in Australia.
The Samsung ‘Microcodes’ hunt will see 101 Galaxy S20 Ultra handsets handed out to eagle-eyed participants who spot tiny codes in advertisements, social media posts and stories across the country in print, on TV and the internet.
Hiding spots reportedly include website banner ads, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter content and in some truly unexpected places, including cinema ads.
More than 85 of the $1999 smartphones were still yet to be claimed on Friday morning.
The concept of finding tiny digital crumbs to unlock smartphones was created by advertising firm CHE Proximity and Samsung Australia mobile vice-president Garry McGregor said it was designed to play on the smartphone’s advanced photography features.
The device’s cameras can capture 108-megapixel images and feature an extended zoom range.
“Microcodes is our most exciting consumer campaign and a first for Samsung Australia,” Mr McGregor said.
“The concept is clever, fun, and speaks to one of our standout camera features, the 100x ‘space zoom’.”
Perhaps ironically, participants may need to scour advertisements with the digital zoom on their existing smartphones to find a ‘microcode’ that spells out the word ‘phone’ in geometric writing.
The word could also be disguised in an alphanumeric soup such as PHoN33456, 9h0Ne3445, phoNE7616 or ph0n3rr98.
Once identified, users have to verify codes at Samsung’s website and be the first person to do so.
Samsung has also enlisted influencers to drop hints to the location of microcodes, including Instagrammer Demas Rusli, and Mr Muselk and Unlisted Leaf from YouTube, and will run the competition until all 101 GS20 Ultra handsets have been claimed.
The treasure hunt idea comes during a tough time for smartphone makers in Australia after research firm Telsyte found sales dropped five per cent during the last half of 2019 and consumers began holding on to their existing devices for longer.
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Telsyte managing director Foad Fadaghi said Australian buyers had become particularly price-sensitive after three years of price rises for top-model smartphones.
“When we’re talking prices higher than $2000, the affordability question emerges and people start doing comparisons with what they used to have and what they want, and often that might mean upgrading to a mid-range handset rather than a premium handsets,” he said.
Mr Fadaghi said Aussies were most likely to invest in 5G smartphones this year to “future-proof” their investment, although many would shop for one of the cheapest on the market so far.
Originally published as Samsung Australia gives away 101 Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G smartphones in national treasure hunt