Samsung’s transparent trailer continues making waves

The ‘transparent’ semi-trailer combination Samsung developed with Argentinian agency Leo Burnett earlier this year has won the prestigious Gravity Award, given out by American advertising trade publication Adweek.

Samsung’s headline-making truck used a front-facing camera that was live streamed onto the back of the vehicle so drivers following it could see what was ahead.

Adweek now unveiled that the truck was part of a local Argentinian marketing campaign to promote safe overtaking.

“The [original] idea was simple: Turn two-lane roads into four-lane highways where overtaking is significantly safer. But clearly, an undertaking of that size was a bit more than the agency and client could afford,” Adweek’s Katie Richards revealed.

“So Fernando Bellotti, president and regional chief creative officer of Leo Burnett Argentina, and his team shifted gears to make the roads safer for drivers in Argentina and – hopefully one day – the rest of the world,” she added.

“Instead of focusing on solving the problem from an infrastructure point of view, we tried to focus on the [Samsung] trucks,” Bellotti told the magazine. “We used technology that was already there in a very innovative way. This idea not only changes people’s lives, it saves them.”

Reportedly, Bellotti’s creative team dove into the project in late 2014 and took until the following March to develop the technology and ensure it would work when fitted onto the trucks.

As soon as the effort hit the road, Samsung’s transparent truck garnered waves of media attention, with the official video showing the tech in action (see below) racking up nearly two million YouTube views to date.

It also scored high praise at Cannes this year. Leo Burnett Argentina left the French Riviera with seven Lions and scored Argentina its first Cyber Lion win.

According to Adweek, brands like Volvo and Argentina-based trailer company Helvetica have now reached out to partner with the agency and continue developing the idea.

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