Andy Walsh2x Exited Founder, Startup Strategist & Podcast Host

How Samsung Beat Beats With Zero Ad Spend

10 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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Samsung lost 3% monthly market share to Beats until it partnered with Katy Perry, placing its brand in her birthday video. The move reached millions without traditional ads, a strategy called borrowed gravity: attaching your product to someone who already has the audience and trust you want.

Chapters

We use the term borrowed gravity. It's the idea that the fastest way to grow is to attach your offer to a partner who already has the audience, the trust, and the credibility that you're trying to build. And I've lived this firsthand going back to the music industry. I closed a deal that put Samsung inside of Katy Perry's birthday video because they were getting crushed by Beats headphones. They were losing 3% market share a month and they didn't know how to fight it. And that was the brand borrowing the gravity of one of the biggest artists in the world to land in front of an audience with no ad spend. No ad spend could buy that level of Authenticity.