• by Karl Greenberg , August 6, 2013

Smartphones are excellent cameras, and that means cameras now have to be smart to survive. Samsung is taking that theme seriously and literally. The company is launching a reality series, "SOS Island: Survival of the Smartest" where the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom and NX, the competitors' companions, get to show off their connected capabilities as well as the other thing they do: take pictures. 

The effort, produced by New York- and Los Angeles-based entertainment production company SXM Entertainment, and directed by the company's executive producer and director Craig Borders, begins with the lead-up to the fall series, a period in which the 16 initial contestants will be cast and winnowed to eight finalists. 

Casting started Monday and ends on Sept. 2. For five days in September, the 16  contestants will be in Puerto Rico learning to handle the slings and arrows of Robinson Crusoe-style island life (sans Friday). Teaching these skills will be Les Stroud, who produced “Survivorman” and has done survival programming on cable networks. From the 16, Samsung and SXM will chose eight finalists to hit the beachhead of S.O.S. Island, where SXM will live-stream their day-to-day travails to a social-media public. 

Borders tells Marketing Daily that to some extent potential contestants' social media following will influence casting. "Part of it is how good you are in social media; how good they are on activating their fan bases." He says, however, that the main consideration -- like that of other Darwinian group-competition reality shows -- is individual back stories and how the personalities mesh. "We are looking for really interesting people."

In addition to being able watch events unfold, fans will be able to engage the contestants via the Samsung cameras they carry. The winner will be chosen via popular vote at social sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. That sole survivor, to be announced Dec. 9, gets a $100,000 experience on his or her own island.

Tom Bannister, CEO of SXM Entertainment, tells Marketing Daily that cultivating an engaged audience won’t be much of a chore because Samsung already has a big Twitter, Facebook and YouTube fan base. "In many ways, this is geared to to them."  

He says the company and SXM will reel in an audience for the actual series with a range of content starting now and leading up to October. "Our challenge is to create a story line throughout the campaign." 

The way the tech company gets its money's worth is that Galaxy S4 Zoom and NX camera connected/smart functionality figures into many of the survival challenges contestants face, but that the producers will be at pains to avoid ramming the functionality theme down the audience's collective throat. "It's rooted in real survival challenges,” says Banister. “We want to flip the script and allow people to instantly interact with [contestants] who will use the smart cameras; but we aren’t bashing anyone over the head."