The Movie Experience Gets More Social With TheSmartLivingRoom.com

Samsung and Digitas Launch a First-of-its-kind Interactive Event Creator with Hunch Technology

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Apr 05, 2011, 12:36 ET

NEW YORK, April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Digitas, a leading global integrated brand agency, announce the launch of The Smart Living Room (www.thesmartlivingroom.com), an innovative and interactive microsite that makes movie watching a deeper social experience and engages the viewer in the world of Samsung televisions.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100616/NE22345LOGO )

Integrating personalization technology from Hunch, The Smart Living Room invites movie viewers to learn more about their own and their friends' movie interests, and ultimately create a customized, social movie watching event.

"We believe TV viewing is an inherently social experience, and The Smart Living Room brings consumers one step further by giving them access to an immersive world of content and functionality that they can share," said Ellen Kim, Vice President, Marketing Group of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. "With our partners Digitas and Hunch, we're continuing to transform the viewer experience by taking an imaginative and fresh look at everything we love about watching TV." Samsung's innovative TV technology enhances users' viewing experiences with more than 400 apps and new Smart TV features such as Search, Web Browser and Your Video enabled on Smart Hub.

After a viewer answers a series of Hunch personality questions, The Smart Living Room creates a personalized movie recommendation including the genre best suited for that viewer as well as movie title suggestions. The viewer can then create a movie watching event by inviting friends and family through Facebook or email. The site utilizes dynamic CG animations to offer the viewer entertainment and surprises throughout the experience.

"Living rooms are networked and connected like never before, and that's changing the way people watch television," said Seth Solomons, Worldwide Marketing Officer Digitas. "With the Smart Living Room, Samsung has created a dynamic and personalized entertainment experience that brings people together to enjoy movies in a new way."

A Facebook tab on the Samsung Televisions brand page (www.facebook.com/samsungtv) will launch in connection with the microsite, offering another place for visitors to get recommendations with the Hunch technology and to learn more about their TV Profile.

"Customizing the movie experience is an optimal application of Hunch's personalization technology," said Shaival Shah, VP Business Development for Hunch. "We're very pleased to work with the innovators at Samsung and Digitas to help bring this exciting project to life."

Upon global rollout the Smart Living Room experience will launch in approximately 20 local markets and will have TV and Digital media support in corresponding markets.

Make your movie watching more social and learn which movie genre best matches your personality at www.thesmartlivingroom.com and on Facebook at Samsung's TV Profiler.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2009 consolidated sales of US$116.8 billion. Employing approximately 174,000 people in 193 offices across 66 countries, the company consists of eight independently operated business units: Visual Display, Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, Digital Imaging, Semiconductor and LCD. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. Samsung is also the HDTV market leader in the U.S. Please visit http://www.samsung.com for more information.

About Digitas

Digitas, the top global integrated brand agency, builds active brands for some of the foremost companies in the world. With a deep understanding of their client's customer's passions and behaviors, the agency combines media creativity, technology, creativity, analytics to ignite emotional bonds between people and brands. Digitas counts Agency of the Year honors from the Festival of Media, OMMA Magazine, Promo Magazine, BtoB Magazine, and Les Agences de l'Annee, France, and has been named to the Advertising Age Digital A-List among its many awards.

Digitas also operates the brand content platform, The Third Act:, producers of first and most well renowned event on digital content, Digital Content NewFront; the healthcare marketing brand, Digitas Health; and, Prodigious Worldwide, the world's only standalone, global digital productions company.

With sister agencies Starcom MediaVest, ZenithOptimedia, Denuo and Razorfish, Digitas is a member of Publicis Groupe's VivaKi -- a global digital knowledge and resource center that leverages the combined scale of the autonomous operations of its members to develop new services, new tools, and new partnerships.

Publicis Groupe [listed on the Euronext Paris Exchange - FR0000130577 - and part of the CAC 40 index] is the world's third largest communications group. With activities spanning 104 countries on five continents, Publicis Groupe offers local and international clients a complete range of advertising services. Web site: www.publicisgroupe.com

www.digitas.com | Twitter: @Digitas | Facebook: Digitas Fan Page

About Hunch

Hunch personalizes the internet by getting to know you and then making smart recommendations about what you might like.

Hunch's ambitious mission is to build a "taste graph" of the entire web, connecting every person on the web with their affinity for anything, from books to electronic gadgets to fashion or vacation spots. Hunch is at the forefront of combining algorithmic machine learning with user-curated content, with the goal of providing better recommendations for everyone.

Hunch provides personalized recommendations on thousands of topics on Hunch.com and is now partnering with other companies to power custom recommendations on 3rd-party sites and applications.

www.hunch.com | Twitter: @Hunch | Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Digitas