Some of the best advertising for smartphones has come from Samsung in recent memory, especially the ones in which the Korean manufacturer makes fun of all the Apple fans that stand in line to get a new iPhone, without ever looking at the alternatives. It all started in 2011 with an ad for the Galaxy S2, and while the industry has not looked kindly at (but has nonetheless enjoyed) the bashing these ads include, according to Samsung Australia’s chief marketing officer Arno Lenior, these ads have propelled the company brand to a whole new level.
Lenior said:
That really did mark quite a tipping point for us globally. We were able to tell a cheeky story — if you think about it, we’re a Korean company starting to really mess with the order of things… You’ve got fanboys after fanboys going, ‘You can’t put that out there,’ and then the Samsung fans saying, ‘Yes, you can’, and they’re starting to have that conversation, which is brilliant. So that piece of content has been amazing for us, both globally and here in Australia.
Also, while Samsung has broken sales records and currently enjoys immense brand recognition in the global market, Lenior thinks the company still has a lot to prove and will always act as a challenger, instead of resting on its laurels and riding the storm of popularity without putting in effort to reach higher and higher.
“I don’t think the public sees us as a market leader just yet, and I quite like that,” he said. “I like being thought of as a challenger brand — I think even though we will be in most segments a market leader, we will always be acting like a challenger. And that comes back to that perpetual state-of-crisis mindset.”
What do you guys think? Do you think such ads mocking the “Apple fanboys” are great and should continue, or do you think Samsung should follow in Apple’s footsteps and make ads that focus on the product without needing to make fun of someone else’s?