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Joseph Perucci English 103 Prof. Elder-Correa Nov 14, 2012 Samsung: Marketing at its Finest Over the course of the last two years, Samsung and Apple have been involved in a series of bitter lawsuits involving almost all of their touch screen products. The series of lawsuits has spanned at least four countries and has cost Samsung at least one billion dollars in legal dues to Apple. The various courts in the different countries all came up with different verdicts, for example the UK court ruled in Samsungs favor and according to an article written for Engadget decided to force the former into publicly acknowledging that the latter did not copy its design. (Trew, James) Adding insult to injury, Apple was also ordered to pay all of Samsungs legal fees. This was a devastating blow to Apples European sector, and a whole lot of bad PR. However, here in America, the verdict of the lawsuit was very different. In the American lawsuit, Apple was the clear victor. According to Michael Gorman writing for Engadget: While the company didn't win on every count, its cadre of lawyers did convince the nine jurors to award Apple over $1 billion in damages for Samsung's IP transgressions. (Gorman, Michael). The court awarded these damages to Apple for intellectual property patents such as D618,677 claims the iPhone's edge-to-edge glass, speaker slot and display border, and patent D593,087 claims its rounded corners and home button. (Gorman, Michael). Though these patens may seem very simple and something we see on most smart phones today, Apple made it clear that no copies shall be tolerated. As a result of these recent

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lawsuits and obvious friction in the air, Samsung has turned to its recent advertising campaign to get back at Apple. However, Samsung was determined to make the best of a bad situation. After these events, Samsung countered Apples attack, but not in the courtroom. Instead, Samsung launched an advertising campaign aimed at stealing Apples business and belittling its most popular product, the iPhone 5. This may have been one of the most brilliant marketing schemes in the last decade. Samsungs aggressive advertising campaign and strategy to increase their cultural relevance in the cell phone world were the key factors to their recent success. A prime example of this campaign was print ad called It Doesnt Take a Genius. This print ads title pokes fun at the people who work at apple stores with the job title of Genius. Simply put, it is nothing more than a logical appeal to consumers that uses a list comparing abilities of the GSIII and iPhone 5. The ad uses two side by side columns to compare and contrast features of both phones such as memory, screen size, processor speed, and other abilities. The Galaxy SIIIs side had a list of 27 features as opposed to the iPhones 13, and all of which were considered to be inferior to those of the Galaxy. This advertisement made the reader think that anyone with common sense would pick the Galaxy, even though the iPhone had been a more popular model. Another example of this aggressive marketing campaign was a television commercial called The Next Big Thing is Already Here advertisement. This ad takes a comedic jab at the new iPhone 5 and its users cult like mentality. The commercial shows lines for the iPhone 5 wrapping around the building in several major cities including NYC, San Francisco, and Los Angles. There is some casual conversation going on between the people on line who are all dressed like hipsters (Plaid, newsboy hats, very hip) and wearing the iconic white apple ear buds.

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They start talking about all of the inherent problems with the new phone like a new jack that you need a connector to use, or about how they might get all of the stuff they didnt get in last years model. Its no coincidence that an advertisement like this went viral after being out for less than a month. Samsung was smart to use its internet celebrity status as a way to boost its sales. With 13.2 million views on a single video, an advertisement no less Samsung was doing something right. Russell Mallory explains the reasoning behind this advertisements success in his article for Ad Age saying Samsung's products might not cause the kind of frenzy that Apple's products do, but the company's marketing has created waves by taking jabs at its biggest competitor. (Russell) Samsung was able to play off the recent lawsuit controversy in such a humorous, yet tactical and calculated way that boosted popularity and antagonized Apple at the same time. The added benefit to this style of advertisements was that according to Mallory It seems apparent that Apple can't rely on buzz alone anymore, especially with Samsung going after it with an aggressive marketing approach. By going after Apple in such a way, they force them to be more pro-active than they have been in recent years and apply pressure to their marketing team to be creative. The proof that this strategy has been working for Samsung is in the statistics. According to an article written by Beth Snyder In 2001 it (Samsung) ranked No. 42 on Interbrand's annual list of top global brands; in 2011 it was No. 17, its brand value almost quadrupling to $6.4 billion. (Snyder) This huge jump in popularity was due largely in part to Samsungs new advertisement campaign pushing to make Samsung more culturally relevant than their rival Apple, and to a good effect. In the third quarter, it (Samsung) beat Apple in global smartphone sales, grabbing 24% of the market to Apple's 15%, according to Strategy Analytics (Snyder).

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Samsung has been using the majority of its monetary and marketing resources to make its brand culturally relevant. They feel that by making its brand a piece of popular culture they will be able to more easily sell a product that is better known. So other than the lawsuits, why target only Apple in the advertisement campaign? There are plenty of other cell phone companies such as HTC, Motorola, and Google, so why only compare to Apple? Almost every one of the sources used that mentions the name Samsung also mentions the name Apple. The reason for this is that Apple has been the premier mobile phone maker for the past few years. Samsung has very recently come out to bat with a solid line of phones and a can do attitude trying to take on this technology giant. The article Samsung-Apple Fight Moves to Marketing does a pretty good job of explaining why Samsung mainly targets Apple, and cites Samsungs advertisements as a very strange way to gain customers. Samsung is trying to convert iPhone users to their Galaxy but according to Mr. Segall they are going about it the wrong way. It seems like an odd way to seduce them because youre basically telling them theyre idiots. (Segall qtd. in Vega and Chen). Why is it that Samsung basically makes Apple users look like morons, yet is still able to convert a good number of them to their product? The only logical answer must be the product itself must be good enough to back up all of the hype. Without a solid product to back up all of Samsungs claims, all of the advertising in the world wouldnt be enough to save Samsungs business. Another smart move by Samsung was when it decided to release the Galaxy SIII to all major carriers rather than limiting it one or two major cell companies. When the first iPhone was released, it was available to only customers of AT&T. Samsung took notes from Apples mistake and decided to simultaneously release its product to all major cell companies. A Samsung press release states As promised, we are delivering the next big thing for U.S. customers and across

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all major carriers, (Dale Sohn qtd. In Samsung). The press release also goes over some last details on the product such as battery life and memory availability. It is clear that Samsung has been using all of its available resources to make sure that this phone succeeds in such a competitive market. It is this press release serves more than one purpose. Samsung uses this announcement or press release in order to build hype surrounding their product in addition to giving the public some real information on the product. Samsung played heavily on the idea of brand relevance. This is the idea that people put a certain value on a brand that they trust or have been using for a long time, and consumers begin to develop a subconscious attachment to product with that kind of value. It is no coincidence that as Samsung has built its brand name that its sales have also risen. Anthony J. Dukes academic journal states a brand name Has a value above and beyond the physical product (Dukes 4) What Dukes is saying is that people attach more to a brand name than just the products they sell. People also associate memories (both good and bad), emotions, and certain lifestyles all with brand names. People who buy the Galaxy SIII are confident that they have made the smartest decision possible, and have purchased the superior piece of technology. Samsung makes the consumer feel like they have broken the mold of uninformed society, held under the firm grasp of apples mobile monopoly. Once people have bought in to the Samsung brand name, they are there to stay and will be loyal to Samsung for some time to come, or until they fail to make solid products. When it comes volume of advertisement, Samsung is definitely one of the top contenders for most frequently played on TV. Why dont people get annoyed at this? Most people have a low tolerance for advertisements, especially those played several times during the same TV program or movie. In my research I found a paper detailing the results of a marketing expert,

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Wayne Hoyer, who performed an experiment that tested the effects of ad repetition of wellknown brands vs. obscure brands. Consumers would have negative reactions to the repetition of ads for familiar brands more quickly than they would to ads for unfamiliar brands. (Hoyer) Because almost no one had heard of Samsung mobile before June of 2011, people had not yet been exposed to advertisements from their mobile campaign. When Samsung came out on to the mobile scene with such force and momentum, people stopped to watch their ads or read up on their products to see what all of the buzz was about. If Samsung mobile had been a more wellknown brand name when they had launched their new ad campaign, there is a good chance their ads would have been seen as a nuisance due to their popularity and frequency. Now that they have been put on the map, it may be time for a change in Samsungs strategy when it comes time to release new ads. However, according to the Trefis Team writing for Forbes, there are those who think that Samsung will not have long term success. The Trefis Team writes writes: Samsungs strategy of flooding the market with new similar-looking products, eventually it will have to start focusing on designing its products to look different from Apples. Samsung has been producing devices that are very aesthetically and technologically similar to Apples. Then, they advertise about them heavily and aggressively and hope for consumers to pick their device. According to this argument, Samsung can only go so long without changing its strategy to fit with the times. Theyve been doing it for well over a year, and even though Samsung has been successful thus far they know it cant last forever. Over the past few months, the pressure has been mounting from the all of the Apple Co. lawsuits in various countries, and Samsung cant use the same tired old tricks forever.

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Thanks to Samsungs style of marketing, Samsung will not need to so drastically change their entire strategy. Only a fool would believe that any company could keep using the same exact advertising for more than a short period of time without expecting to make some changes to its style or commercials. Samsung has recognized this and decided to change up its advertising, while at the same time keeping the same Apple Look alike galaxy SIII as its main product, rather than designing an entirely new product line like the article for Forbes had suggested would happen. Recently launched was a commercial entitled Work Trip in which Samsung changes its direction a bit by not directly attacking Apple anymore, but instead appealing to Americas sense of humor. In this new ad, Samsung shows off the Galaxys ability to instantly share videos between two phones. A young father is about to leave on a work trip and his two adorable children have decided to make him a video to watch on the plane, so they bump phones and they share it instantly. Meanwhile his wife says hold on I made you one too, and they proceed to bump phones and she says You probably shouldnt watch it on the plane and winks at him, suggesting the video she made is sexually oriented. This kind of commercial is the next step for Samsung in its highly calculated and planned marketing plot. Now that Samsung has made their brand publically familiar though controversial commercials and aggressive ads, they can begin to make more casual, funny ads that only highlight a few features of the phone. They no longer need to prove themselves as the new kid on the block, and can continue to make the same products as they always have and merely change up their marketing strategy to fit with the times. Looking back at Samsungs new advertisement campaign mentioned earlier on, its not hard to tell why the commercials are so popular. According to a piece written by Jib Fowles, marketers use hidden messages to appeal to certain areas of human emotion. Every ad is a

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variation on one of a limited number of basic appeals. (Fowles) Two of the big ones that Samsung play on are the need for affiliation and the need for autonomy. Samsung plays on these appeals particularly well in its Next Big Thing TV commercial. In the commercial Samsung shows the Galaxy users as a tight knit, very intelligent, hip group. The consumer sees how this group is in touch with society, but at the same time unique and individual, unlike the mindless drones of Apple. People are more willing to buy something that gives them a sense of individuality than something that everyone else has already, such as the iPhone. Consumers want to be unique, yet belong, and Samsung has done a great job of catering to that mindset with its commercials. Over the past two years Samsung has gone from an off the radar company to a premiere name brand in the world of cell phones. Even while enduring a vicious and ongoing lawsuit battle with Apple, Samsung has managed to come out on top. Samsung has built up its reputation by producing quality products and becoming a culturally relevant brand name through their advertisements. The notably aggressive marketing techniques being used are dual purposed; they are used to make the brand seem culturally relevant as well as attacking its main competition, Apple. Recently these changes to marketing style and change in direction have proved beneficial for the company. Samsungs mobile department has seen a steady gain in its brand popularity as well as its market worth, and the amount of the market it controls. By coupling superior technology with stellar marketing, Samsung has completely turned around the direction of its company and restored its brand name to its former glory. If Samsung can continue to be original and aggressive with its marketing, while not losing touch with its customers, without a doubt they will continue to enjoy great success in the next few years to come.

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Works Cited Bulk, Beth Snyder. "Samsung: Cultural Relevance Bet Pays Off." Advertising Age 82.40 (2011): 28. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Oct. 2012. Dukes, Anthony J. "The Value Of A Brand." Phi Kappa Phi Forum 84.3 (2004): 4-5. AcademicSearch Complete. Web. 16 Oct. 2012 Fowles, Jib. Advertisings Fifteen Basic Appeals. Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture. Ed. Peracca, Michael and Sorapure, Madeleine. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998 print. Gorman, Michael. "Breaking down Apple's $1 Billion Courtroom Victory over Samsung."Engadget. N.p., 25 Aug. 2012. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. It Doesnt Take a Genius. Advertisement Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, 2012 Team, Trefis. "Samsung's Market-Flooding Strategy May Not Work Much Longer." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 06 Sept. 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. The Next Big Thing is Already Here - Samsung Galaxy S III. Sept 19, 2012. Youtube.com. Advertisement. October 10, 2012. Trew, James. "Apple Publishes 'Samsung Did Not Copy' Statement through Gritted Teeth." Engadget. N.p., 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. Russell, Mallory How Samsung Upstaged Apple During the Launch of iPhone 5. 9/26/12 Adage.com Web. October 12, 2012. SAMSUNG Galaxy S III Coming To Five Major Carriers Beginning in June. Samsung Telecommunications. June 4, 2012. Web October 16, 2012. Samsung. "Samsung Galaxy S III - Work Trip" YouTube. Advertisement, 24 Oct. 2012. Web. 10

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Vega, Tanzina and Chen, Brain X. Samsung-Apple Fight Moves to Marketing. September 18, 2012. New York Times, Web. October 13, 2012. Wayne D. Hoyer, et al. "Brand Familiarity And Advertising Repetition Effects." Journal Of Consumer Research 30.2 (2003): 292-304. Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Oct. 2012