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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

Samsung absolutely decimated the other manufacturers in marketing - including Google.

I remember seeing GQ articles that were interviews with celebrities that was kind of a "30 questions" thing where each celebrity was asked the same set of questions.

One of them was: "iPhone or Samsung?"

It didn't matter that the answer to every single one (in that issue) was iPhone. It didn't surprise me that celebrities would be 100% iPhone users.

But as a discerning high-end android buyer gravitating between flagship Google Nexus devices, HTC, and LG, the implication that the alternative to iPhone was "Samsung" was BEWILDERING to me.

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When 6-year-olds use Samsung as a synonym for Android, you know that Samsung's marketing is crushing it. Which is a shame considering how poor their overall software quality is.

FWIW I've had good experiences with recent Samsung devices. The OS is fast and stable and adds some useful things to stock Android. Their bundled apps aren't terrible either. I use their mail & notes apps. At this point I'd rather have a flagship Galaxy phone than a Pixel since Android doesn't bring that much in terms of new features with major releases these days.

They should hire at least one UX-Designer and listen occasionally to it.

I'm sorry but how a 6 years old know anything about phone brands?

its election time in my home state in India and my 6+ year old asks me who will win the election? I was surprised at the question and the fact that she is able to articulate the political party names. At her age i didn't even know what a political party is. I then realized she sees lots of Television now ever since she moved to her grandama's house during covid.

She goes and names three top parties herself and predicts that one particular party will win. I was surprised.. Asked her why she think so and says she sees more ads of that particular party more than others.. i was beyond words.

You should teach your children, and those in your extended family, how to, and to, avoid ads.

We should all also do our part to end the political ad insanity. This can't be healthy for anyone.

I have stricter no screen policy at my home. But since she is staying with her grand parents now (due to reasons beyond my control) and they are used to watching TV, she ends up watching it too. And its really difficult to avoid ads, you get that in all the channels.

Parent has a point. Even if it's difficult, teach her to mute and ignore them. Seriously, my parents taught me some disgust against ads, and it's one thing they did right.

Sorry to hear.

I remember when we went to my grandmas house, and the media was talking about a ‘major crisis’ in the White House, like they do every day.

Our seven-year-old suddenly got concerned and has to be calmed down, because she is so rarely exposed to American media.

I feel bad for this generation, and I’m not surprised that almost half of our senior high school girls (at least on one sports team) are on anti-anxiety medication.

6 year olds watch a lot of TV/YouTube, and see a ton of advertising

That really depends on the parents I would say. My kids watch about zero linear ad riddled TV and YouTube, because we don't have a TV. They do get to watch Netflix, NextTube and Disney+. And various educational programs that are streamed ad free online. That at least limits their exposure to advertising, though some shows are basically advertisements for cheap plastic toys (paw patrol, fireman sam) and we disagree if they are allowed.

It is a demonstration of how well advertising works since they (presumably) don't have much knowledge about mobile devices or branding. Calling everything an iPhone is the telling part. If branding wasn't a thing, they would simply call it a phone.

Youtube, TikTok and countless other apps. They will literally create videos asking each other to rate phone brands and what not.

Advertising.

I think it stemmed from their dominance in quality TVs for a while. These days I see no reason to pay Samsung's rediculous TV prices and they do puy out some real garbage screens now but for a while it was Samsung or some peasant trash.

It's not bewildering if it's literally always been true.

A few points:

Samsung is not cool. Or rather, maybe a little bit among some very middle/lower class people.

Selling mobiles is done primarily through carriers - this is not about Samsung direct advertising mostly, by and large, it's through the deals made with carriers.

Google has never taken their phone and it's manufacturing/distribution as seriously as Samsung.

Carriers may have also specifically not wanted Google to win, because it gives G too much power, they hate Apple and don't want to have to be told what to do.

Samsung has always had a huge variety of phones, a much bigger and broader approach.

They have always led with a kind of crappy, thrown-together feature, but it was enough to put some wrap a bad campaign around good enough for a bulk of the Android community.

Outside of US, carrier bundling is rarely seen, people buy phones and carrier plans often prepaid separately.

The US is a pretty large market, plus carrier bundling is quite common in Europe too. You are usually free to choose a non-bundled phone as well, but I have no ideas what the numbers are.

Within the bundled packages, my impression is that Samsung is very dominant as well among the Android phones.

China and India are the two largest smartphone markets in the world, and I am thinking in these big markets carrier bundling isn't a thing at all.

New Zealand is outside the US and it's not unusual for people to buy their phones from their carrier alongside signing up to a plan especially if they are spending a lot of money. Phones purchased directly from the carrier are guaranteed to have the correct LTE bands which makes it easier to be sure you will get the best performance. Also carriers offer sweet interest-free deals with free stuff throw in which makes it more appealing than buying a phone outright. It's usually people buying cheaper phones that may just pair up an cheap phone from an independent store with a cheap plan often from a virtual operator.

It's the same in the UK as well.

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