London 2012 Watch: David Beckham Kicks Out Ode to Joy for Samsung

The coming Summer Olympics are promising to be the most digital sporting event of all time. NBC is planning to stream gobs of events and is not afraid that doing so will bastardize the prime-time coverage that the average viewer seeks. That way, a table-tennis aficionado can catch every last move that the Warren Buffett-sponsored American teen prodigy Ariel Hsing makes while the general public can just marvel at her greatest hits.

The digital Olympics onslaught got a serious boost this week when Olympic partner Samsung released an awesome online-only advertisement featuring David Beckham, one of the brand's Team Samsung London 2012 ambassadors. In it, the soccer star promotes the Galaxy Note by sounding out Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” by kicking balls at a wall of drums. The word was spread about the ad using Beckham’s own Facebook page as well as other online touch points. Since the video went live on Monday, it's racked up more than 1M views.

"We wanted to cut through the glut of Olympic ad clutter," Younghee Lee, SVP and head of global marketing at Samsung, told Ad Age. "We felt we could engage more people across the globe by deviating from a tradition television or print campaign.”

Beckham, by the way, also released a new commercial this week as part of Burger King's celeb-studded campaign touting its new menu. We've said it before and we'll say it again: few celebs know how to brand it like Beckham!