The electronics firm is aiming to engage with a young, edgy music-loving audience by signing up to sponsor music magazine NME's Radar Tour, which launches on 29 April and runs in various UK locations until mid-May.
Previously known as the Topman NME New Noise Tour 2008, the music event features bands including La Roux, The Chapman Family, Heartbreak and Magistrates.
In the US, Samsung is promoting its Samsung Mobile brand with the sponsorship of the ‘Music As A Weapon IV Tour', a music, tattoo, and lifestyle festival, using it to showcase its Samsung Rant and Samsung HighNote mobile phones.
Samsung has previously affiliated its brand with sports sponsorship, signing as a sponsor of the Olympic Games until 2016 and tied into a £50m five-year shirt sponsor deal with Chelsea Football Club until 2010.
It had cautiously dipped its toe into music mobiles with one-off phones such as the high-end Serenata mobile, launched with Bang & Olufsen in 2007.
But its more mainstream music phone launches have fallen flat - the F400 was last year reviewed in mobile magazines as ‘easily overshadowed' by Nokia and Sony Ericsson's music phone offerings.
Sony Ericsson has stolen a march on Samsung with the popular Walkman music phone range, and its PlayNow music downloads site which lets consumers download tracks to their mobile phone for 79p.
Nokia, meanwhile, has been heavily promoting its Comes with Music service, which lets consumers get unlimited music downloads from the Nokia Music Store when they buy the Nokia 5310 and N95 8Gb music edition handsets.
Now Samsung's recently-appointed marketing director Mika Martin-Cruz, formerly from Sony, is planning a more concerted effort to take on its stronger rivals. The company is expected to sign additional new brand partnerships with music events this year, using them to promote new music phones and engage younger consumers with the brand.
The music phone market is one of the fastest growing areas in the mobile industry and Samsung plans to forge its own music mobile identity with the launch of its newest series of music phones, the Beat handsets, in the UK in May.
The Samsung Beat DJ and Samsung Beat Disc have been inspired by jukebox imagery and come with Bang & Olufsen audio technology. The Samsung Beat DJ allows everyone to be a DJ, letting users ‘scratch' the records on the display to create their personal music. It also has built-in stereo speakers.
But while DJ-style ‘scratching' on a mobile phone can be described as unique in the music mobile market, Samsung will have its work cut out to strengthen its brand association with music lovers.
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