Though it's been making a lot of waves this year, the Samsung x BTS campaign isn't the company's first successful celebrity collaboration. In fact, Samsung just recalled some of its biggest such marketing stunts in the mobile space, starting with the 2007 B Phone launched with the blessing from the Queen of Pop – Beyoncé. But the company had to wait eight more years to find its next big celebrity hit, having finally done so with the release of the Galaxy S6 Edge Iron Man Edition.
Only 1,000 such devices were ever produced and the Galaxy S7 Edge Injustice Edition launched the following year received the same limited production run.
From Beyoncé to BTS
And that was it until the K-Pop era which started last year with the Galaxy A80 Blackpink Edition and the Galaxy S20+ BTS Edition debuted several months ago. This year also saw the debut of the Galaxy Note10+ 5G Star Wars Edition, the final high-profile crossover in the Galaxy family that Samsung considers a major success.
All of that is not accounting for fashion collaborations, however. Those began in 2006 with the VERSUS Phone designed alongside Versace. Over the following three years, Samsung went on to collaborate with Armani, ultimately releasing three feature phones – the Giorgio Armani Phone and two iterations of the LED-infused slider phone called Night Effect.
Before this year's fruitful collaboration with Thom Browne, we also saw the Samsung Gear S2 by de GRISOGONO, Samsung's first ultra-luxurious wearable which launched in 2016 for a modest price of $15,000.
As for the Thom Browne partnership, it already yielded special iterations of the Galaxy Z Flip, Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Watch 3, and the Galaxy Buds Live.
Which one of these was your favorite?
