Why Samsung is Doubling Down on SLS Alliance
Instead of paying for a single burst of ads, the brand is tapping into ongoing content, athlete stories, and product feedback.
Samsung has quietly made a fresh move in brand partnerships. At Street League Skateboarding’s Paris stop, the company expanded its deal with SLS. The new agreement is a multi-year global alliance that includes year-round cultural insights and co-creation on skate-specific products and campaigns. The move builds on Samsung’s earlier Open Always Wins campaign, and formalizes what many marketers try to do but rarely sustain.
The alliance is rooted in creativity, innovation, and openness, a clean fit with skate culture. To ground it in real people, Samsung named Olympic medalists Jagger Eaton and Rayssa Leal as Team Samsung Galaxy ambassadors. This is not a one-off logo slap. It is a plan to participate in a community, the bet being that as budgets continue shifting to digital, sustained, community-driven partnerships like this one have an edge.
Build for the long term to unlock bigger returns
Short campaigns spike, then fade. Long-term partnerships compound. Brands that keep influencer and partner relationships for 12 months or more see an average 300% jump in engagement versus one-offs, along with 40-60% lower content creation costs over time. Other studies show up to four times higher engagement and 50% better conversion for long-term programs, along with 35% higher ROI when you track more than vanity metrics. These results make sense. People typically need to see a brand seven to eight times before arriving at purchase intent.
Samsung has moved from a single-year activation to a multi-year global alliance with SLS, with co-creation built in. That shift changes the cost curve and the learning curve. Instead of paying for one burst of ads, the brand taps into ongoing content, athlete stories, and product feedback. It spreads the cost across a longer timeline. It also reduces the risk of “campaign amnesia” that plagues many brand budgets.
This approach matches what many leaders already sense. Marketers say it is hard to measure sponsorship ROI, yet they plan to spend more on it. Long-term structures make measurement easier because you can track consistent signals over time rather than chasing short spikes. If you are budgeting, ask how a partnership of 12-24 months could potentially replace a string of disconnected buys.
For added context, practitioners agree that long-term influencer partnerships improve trust, content quality, and efficiency. Samsung’s global expansion with SLS follows that playbook.
Be a community participant, not just a sponsor
Community-led brands are winning across Asia. Over 70% of Southeast Asian consumers prefer brands that reflect their values, especially those that uplift communities. In Asia more broadly, 88% of consumers say they are more likely to buy from brands that address social or environmental issues. The takeaway is simple. People want partners, not billboards.
Samsung’s choice of skateboarding is a values decision. Skate culture prizes creativity, innovation, and openness, the same themes Samsung puts forward. Signing Eaton and Leal, both SLS Super Crown World Champions and Olympic medalists, gives the brand credible voices inside the community. It is a move from advertising to belonging.
Leighton Cosseboom
China offers a blueprint for going deeper. Perfect Diary built WeChat communities around a friendly persona called Xiaowanzi, then used those groups to drive repeat purchases and support. The approach helped generate more than CNY 2.3 billion (~US$318 million). Retailers using community tactics report stronger retention and higher sales. These are not just vanity wins; they are balance-sheet outcomes, and they show why community-led brands in China keep outpacing transactional models.
Asia’s scale makes community work even more powerful. The region holds 60% of global social media users. That means more places to show up, more feedback loops, and more chances to build trust with the right groups.
Co-create across channels to stay relevant
Co-creation is moving from buzzword to standard. Industry research shows 58% of businesses are piloting co-creation projects to drive innovation. Samsung’s SLS agreement explicitly calls for year-round cultural insights and creative collaboration that can shape skate-specific product features and campaigns. That is a smart hedge against fast-changing youth trends.
Channel behavior supports this shift. In Asia Pacific, 79% of marketers are moving more spend to digital, 68% are increasing social media spend, and 67% are putting more into online and mobile video, according to Nielsen. Multi-channel activation is where partnerships pay off. Samsung’s skateboarding work spans event stops on different continents, athlete-led storytelling, social media content, and physical experiences like Olympic rendezvous at Samsung showcases tied to the Paris timeline.
Sports and lifestyle partnerships are also becoming core media in Southeast Asia. Regional football and other events deliver massive reach, and 77% of Asia Pacific marketers plan to increase budgets in newer channels that include influencer marketing and connected TV. Placing your brand inside culture, then carrying that story across platforms, is now a route to scale, not a side bet. You can see these dynamics in action across sports and lifestyle partnerships in ASEAN.
To make co-creation and partnerships easier to manage, keep your scorecard tight:
- Set one primary outcome per quarter, like trial, lead capture, or retention. Track seven to eight audience touchpoints across platforms.
- Watch community signals such as repeat purchase rates, user content, and participation in private groups.
- Record the content cost saved by reusing partner assets. Use social listening to check values fit over time.
This is not abstract. Co-creation shortens feedback loops, reduces wasted content, and increases the odds that your next product or campaign matches what the community actually wants. If you need a primer on co-creation wins, start with these co-creation examples.
What Asian brand leaders should do next
- Choose markets and communities where your values are a real match, not a loose fit.
- Build one multi-year anchor partnership, then fund it like a product line, not a project.
- Treat partners as R&D inputs, not just media channels, and move their insights into product roadmaps.
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