Last week, Olympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa announced that the 2020 Games would ban spectators due to a resurgence of the coronavirus in Japan—showing the pandemic's continuing toll on live events (and, in turn, the marketers that sponsor them>.

See all of Ad Age's news coverage of the Tokyo Olympics here.

A new ad from official Olympics partner Samsung, however, manages to fit the brand’s message into all the uncertainty by showing how its devices help fans “Be There” at the games, no matter where they are in the world.

The new film from The Community and directed by Us via Reset shows a series of vignettes of people around the world transported into the Olympics universe—one city commuter on the subway finds herself watching sprinters at the stadium; a man on a hike lands among the crowd at a basketball game; children in a classroom feel the wind on their faces as sailing competitors breeze by. Sky Brown, who will be one of the inaugural skateboarding athletes to participate in the Games, has her dad by her side during the competition, thanks to her Samsung phone. 

The ad aims to illustrate how Samsung technology has come to play an even bigger role in bringing friends and family together for major events such as the Olympics. 

“Sports have the power to bring the world together, but the world can't be together right now," Marcelo Padoca, executive idea director of The Community said in a statement. "This gives Samsung technology a meaningful and important role this year: bring athletes and fans together, even when they’re apart."

The Community has worked with Samsung for two years, focusing mostly on the Hispanic market, but last year, the partnership expanded to global work. The Olympics ad is one of its first for Samsung Global Mobile.