Samsung (at least in the US) seems to be carving out a new niche for itself: fun.
Check out these two recent (American) promos and I’ll try to explain how I think they’ve cracked it …
Now Samsung are no strangers to cheeky online films that are getting acres of internet chat – more often than not at the expense of their West Coast rival.
The thing that interests me is the approach they’ve taken to doing it.
They’ve realised that they can’t match Apple for hype. They can’t match the biggest company in the world for show. They can’t beat them when it comes to editorial fanboys – writing everything about their every move in the way they do about their Cupertino cousins.
So while Apple zigs, Samsung has (with remarkable aplomb, style and grace for what was a rather austere Korean tech brand), zagged.
What Samsung has done is capitalise on something totally different: fun.
And “fun” is Apple’s Achilles heel. The brand simply doesn’t deliver that essential element in their communications. Slick, yes. Beautifully, nay stunningly, managed, yes. Hyped beyond anything the world has ever seen, yes.
But fun?
Not really, no.
Because Apple has become so serious about the way that they present and promote their products that for many it’s something of a turn-off. It’s austere, it’s too serious for its own good (this is a phone we’re talking about, after all).
Samsung has therefore adopted a high stakes-strategy, betting everything they’ve got that they can simply be more fun than their rivals. More entertaining (and let’s face it, mobile phones are nothing if not vehicles for entertainment these days).
And the approach they’ve taken – bypassing the editorial media (that they would never match Apple for) and going direct to the consumer to get their message across – has been a masterstroke.
By creating genuinely entertaining content to support their phone’s unique features (in the case above of bump to share video), they’ve gone direct to the punters who might be interested – having cultivated enough of a following now that the content they create has a naural base that will spread it to the rest of us.
Samsung is doing what every great brand should do when faced with an entrenched competitor in the media. They’ve managed to identify the emotional lever that Apple has left uncapitalised upon in recent years. And they’ve gone direct to their base with content that delivers a simple message (over and above the product shout-outs): Samsung is simply more fun.
A stunning (digital) stunt that is sure to win more fans over to the plucky Far East challenger.
James Gordon-MacIntosh is a managing partner at Hope&Glory PR and occasionally pens things on Spinning Around, a blog that he describes as “thinking out loud”. He hasn’t been thinking much lately.
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