Samsung's “Next Big Thing” ads campaign, which made fun of Apple users standing in line for the next iPhone while touting features of Samsung devices, were among the funniest that we've come across, but according to Samsung attorney John Quinn, the ads didn't sit well with the iPhone maker and “drove Apple crazy”. Speaking at the ongoing second patent trial between Apple and Samsung, Quinn presented documents that “haven't been made public before” to prove how the “Next Big Thing” campaign made Apple's marketing head (Phil Schiller) anxious and made him realize that the competition from Samsung had come to a level that could no longer be ignored.
Schiller reportedly sent an email to his team titled “Has Apple lost its cool to Samsung”, saying that “we have a lot of work to do to turn this around.” He apparently advised Apple CEO Tim Cook to look to other ad agencies for Apple products instead of the ones they had been using before, and the matter also reportedly reached the Apple board, who discussed Schiller's proposition several times.
Phil Schiller will be the first witness Apple calls upon, and it should be interesting to see what insights he offers into the apparent “obsession” he developed because of Samsung's snarky ad campaign. The trial is expected to run the whole month, so we should certainly be seeing quite a few more of such revelations.
