Earlier this year, investment bank Piper Sandler published results from an annual survey showing that 87 percent of teens own an iPhone, leaving precious little market for Android device makers to carve up. But Samsung has a new plan to break the kids of their Apple addiction: Get YouTuber and restauranteur Jimmie Donaldson, aka MrBeast, to make content with its phones. Starting with a video where he drives expensive cars around.
Samsung writes in its announcement that this will showcase “what’s possible with a Galaxy smartphone for aspiring and professional creators.”
The company’s phones get some screen time in the video. There’s a quick mid-video ad read for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 with a nod to the S23 Ultra while MrBeast drives a prototype $2 million hydrogen car that has no seatbelts. There are glimpses of the S23 Ultra mounted inside cars throughout the rest of the video and a couple of links in the description, including one to a behind-the-scenes video uploaded by Samsung. Otherwise, it’s very much just a MrBeast video:
The blue bubble peer pressure theory about teens’ iPhone preference would imply Samsung’s efforts are doomed, but hey, maybe a $1,000 folding phone is the right phone to challenge that theory with. We’ll see if the company’s MrBeast sponsorship moves the needle for the fifth generation of Samsung’s flip phone. Maybe that video thumbnail showing off Donaldson’s pearly whites instead of his uvula will help.
