Samsung's Big Decisions campaign, created by 72andSunny in 2015, stars Chrissy Teigen in a film spotlighting the Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy Note5 for US
Samsung Big Decisions Puts Chrissy Teigen at the Center of Galaxy S6 Edge
Samsung's "Big Decisions" is a 2015 film campaign created by 72andSunny for the United States market, featuring Chrissy Teigen and spotlighting the Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy Note5 as devices worthy of life's most consequential choices.
Published in September 2015, the campaign arrives at a calculated moment in the US smartphone calendar. September is, historically, the month Apple refreshes its iPhone lineup and commands enormous cultural attention. Samsung's strategic posture — placing a recognisable celebrity personality inside a scenario built around meaningful decision-making — is a direct attempt to reclaim the cultural oxygen that Apple's annual launch cycle tends to monopolise. The single film asset carries the full weight of the campaign's argument: that choosing a Galaxy device is not a concession or a compromise but itself a big decision, made by people with discerning taste and strong personalities.
The campaign operates within the Electronics and Technology category and targets US consumers at the precise moment competitive purchase intent peaks. By anchoring the creative to Chrissy Teigen, a figure whose public persona is built on candid, self-aware humour and wide social reach, Samsung and 72andSunny attempt to make the Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy Note5 feel less like specifications and more like lifestyle expressions. The Clapboard Score for "Big Decisions" is 63 out of 100, reflecting a campaign that executes its celebrity-led brief competently without reaching the benchmark of culturally transformative work. As a film execution, it represents a single, focused media asset — one idea, delivered with the production resources and talent roster that Samsung's US advertising investment routinely commands.
Samsung faced measurable pressure in the United States in 2015. According to TrendForce, Samsung's global smartphone shipments reached an estimated 320 million units that year, with its global market share declining from approximately 28 percent in 2014 to approximately 25 percent in 2015. Apple, its primary competitor in the premium US segment, shipped approximately 227 million iPhones in 2015, equivalent to roughly 17.5 percent of global smartphone share, according to TrendForce. In the United States specifically, Apple's dominance in the premium tier made Samsung's task acute: sustaining aspirational relevance among consumers who were, and remain, deeply loyal to the iOS ecosystem.
Samsung and 72andSunny had established a combative creative playbook for this competitive challenge as early as 2012, when the agencies produced the "Next Big Thing" series depicting Apple Store queues full of people unaware that Galaxy users already had what they were waiting for, according to Wikipedia and reporting by MediaPost. That approach generated significant earned attention — the 90-second "Apple Fanboys" execution accumulated more than 70 million online views, as reported by MediaPost — but it was inherently reactive, defining Samsung against Apple rather than for itself.
By September 2015, the strategic logic had matured. "Big Decisions" moves away from direct competitive mockery and toward positive brand identity construction. The choice of Chrissy Teigen signals a deliberate pivot to cultural currency over technical confrontation. Globally, smartphone shipments reached 1.433 billion units in 2015, up 10.1 percent from 2014, according to Gartner, making US consumer attention intensely contested. Against that backdrop, Samsung's decision to invest in personality-driven film advertising reflects a broader industry recognition that hardware differentiation alone cannot sustain premium positioning in a mature market.
Henry Alex Rubin directs "Big Decisions," bringing a filmmaker's sensibility to what could easily have been a straightforward celebrity product spot. Rubin, whose documentary background includes work recognised for its intimate character observation, is a purposeful choice for material that wants to feel human and unforced rather than glossy and transactional. The film is built around Chrissy Teigen, whose comedic timing and self-aware screen presence give the campaign its primary texture.
The creative team at 72andSunny is led by Executive Creative Director Guillermo Vega, with Creative Directors Eric Steele and Joseph Ernst shaping the campaign's strategic and executional voice. Art Director Rob McQueen and Copywriter Matt Vitou define the visual and verbal register of the work. Managing Director James Townsend oversees the agency's client relationship, and the production infrastructure is managed by Director of Production Lora Schulson, Executive Producer Kerli Teo, Senior Producer Gem Conway, and Junior Producer Yaya Zhang, with additional production support from producers Lizzie Shook, Jamie Lynn-Perritt, and Gavin Carroll, and coordination from Jacqueline Sand.
Post-production is handled by Arcade Edit, with editors Kim Bica and Paul Martine shaping the final film's rhythm and pace. The combination of a single, well-resourced film asset and a tightly defined celebrity personality suggests a campaign designed for broad broadcast and digital distribution in the United States, where reach rather than frequency is the operative ambition. The restraint of delivering one media asset — rather than a fragmented multi-execution suite — reflects a confidence in the power of a single, sharply realised film to carry the brand argument without dilution across formats.
No verified performance data for "Big Decisions" is publicly available. Samsung has not released campaign-specific metrics, and no contemporaneous trade press reviews of the work have been located across Ad Age, Adweek, The Drum, or Contagious. No award records for the campaign appear across Cannes Lions, the Effies, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC.
Structural analysis, however, reveals a campaign designed with clear effectiveness logic. The September 2015 release date is not incidental — it places Samsung directly in the conversation during Apple's peak annual awareness moment in the United States, maximising the probability that undecided consumers encounter the Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy Note5 at precisely the point they are most open to premium alternatives. Chrissy Teigen's involvement provides a multiplier: her public profile in 2015 carries substantial organic reach, reducing the campaign's dependence on paid media weight alone to generate attention.
The decision to commit to a single film asset rather than a fragmented campaign suite concentrates creative energy and production investment into one expression, which historically correlates with stronger brand recall in the Electronics and Technology category. Against a competitive landscape in which Apple held deep loyalty among US premium consumers and Samsung's own global share was declining according to TrendForce, "Big Decisions" represents a structurally sound attempt to reassert cultural relevance through personality and narrative — even if the verified impact of that attempt remains undocumented in the public record.
Samsung's "Big Decisions" is a 2015 film campaign created by 72andSunny for the United States market. It features Chrissy Teigen and promotes the Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy Note5. Published in September 2015, it uses celebrity-driven storytelling to position Samsung devices as the choice of discerning, culturally engaged US consumers.
Henry Alex Rubin directed the Samsung "Big Decisions" film. Rubin works under the creative leadership of 72andSunny Executive Creative Director Guillermo Vega, with Creative Directors Eric Steele and Joseph Ernst. The film is produced through a full agency and production team, with post-production handled by editorial company Arcade Edit.
Samsung chose Chrissy Teigen for "Big Decisions" because her candid public persona and strong US audience reach aligned with the campaign's goal of making Galaxy devices feel culturally relevant rather than purely technical. Her comedic timing and broad appeal helped Samsung compete for consumer attention during Apple's peak iPhone launch period in September 2015.
The "Big Decisions" campaign promotes two Samsung devices: the Galaxy S6 edge and the Galaxy Note5. Both are premium smartphones targeted at US consumers in the Electronics and Technology category. The campaign's September 2015 release positions both devices as alternatives to Apple's iPhone at the height of the annual competitive purchase cycle.
Samsung's "Big Decisions" campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. This score reflects a campaign that executes its celebrity-led creative brief competently, with strong production credentials and a clear competitive rationale, without reaching the threshold of culturally transformative or award-recognised advertising work in the Electronics category.
"Big Decisions" continues a Samsung and 72andSunny partnership that dates to 2012, when the agencies created the "Next Big Thing" series targeting Apple loyalists directly. By 2015, the creative strategy had shifted toward positive brand identity and cultural affinity. "Big Decisions" reflects that maturation, favouring personality and narrative over direct competitive mockery.
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