Samsung’s New TV Ad: Apple Fans Are Whiny Lemmings
macobserver.com
macobserver.com
Or something - something different from what we've had from phone companies for years. Model XYF573 - rev2! Now with more colors! Oh, and 4G! Then 2 months later that model isn't produced any more, and we're on to rev3, which is a different form factor... wash, rinse, repeat. Yes, I exaggerate slightly, but I got tired of trying to compare all the various specs some time ago.
I was a linux guy for years, and got tired of things not working, not being mainstream, etc. I was a Linux guy when Windows was cool, then Linux when Mac was cool. I finally caved in and went Mac. It's good - nay, just easier - being part of the majority for a while. It's not that I don't think about my tech choices, I just spend more time thinking about stuff at another level of abstraction (get an iPhone, now decide which of the X thousand apps I want to use to make my life better). Getting device X solely because of specs (bigger screen!) generally won't make my life easier/better.
Apple is on top right now, just like MS/Windows was in the 90s. Something will displace them in the next 10-15 years, but it won't be the Samsung Galaxy $MODEL, and it won't be this ad.
Or you could have spent 15 minutes finding a device that fits your needs instead of buying whatever everyone else has then spending weeks trying to decide how to make that work for you.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&c...
Complaining about the Apple USB cable is just not a very valid complaint. Micro-usb is nice and all, but with how many iPods, iPhones, etc... that have sold you're just as likely to find a person with a iPod cable lying around as you are a micro-usb one. Heck, my car stereo will charge my iPods through the dock connector, and came with the cable to do so.
http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jmartellaro
http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=digiwizard
People identify with the products they buy, whether it's a car, a computer, a phone, running shoes, etc.
Have you ever had an argument with someone over their favorite brand? Telling someone they bought the "wrong" brand is basically like telling them they're stupid. Not the best way to endear yourself to them.
SanDisk tried this in 2006 with their anti-iPod campaign "iDon't" that portrayed iPod owners as braying jackasses: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/sandisk-launc...
Sprint did something similar with the Palm Pre in 2009: http://jaysonelliot.com/blog/2009/06/27/the-wrong-way-to-sel...
People want to think of themselves as smart, savvy consumers. When they buy a big-ticket item, they spend time with the advertising AFTER they've already bought it, as a way of reaffirming their choice. When I worked on the Land Rover website from 2008-2010, we found that a significant amount of traffic was from recent buyers. They were coming to the site to feel good about the money they'd just spent.
Negative ads only work in political campaigns, where the goal is to suppress your competitor's turnout.
If you want to beat the competition, focus on your own positives. You can compare yourself to the competitor, but never tell their customers that they're stupid. You might get sales from people that already dislike Apple, but you'll never make a convert with an insult.
The ads seem to be more about attacking the competition than the competition's customers, but they still come off as attack ads, sometimes rather nasty ones.
It's hard to say exactly how effective they were. Mac sales saw a boost during that campaign, but other factors, such as the iPod "halo effect" and much-publicized Windows Vista problems, could be credited as well. Who knows? Maybe they would have sold more Macs with a more positive campaign.
I agree, though, John Hodgman was the more endearing of the two.
Maybe one way to judge the effectiveness of the ads is to look at the careers of Justin Long and John Hodgman—it seems like "PC" came out on top, in their case.
I felt a tremendous amount of contempt in this Samsung ad: "Hey, idiot, check out our new phone." I really have a hard time feeling that Samsung, in any way, understands why I buy an iPhone, so how could they possibly build a device that I would appreciate?
As a few previous bloggers have pointed out (http://digithoughts.com/post/12962540298/apple-vs-samsung-pi...), Samsung needs to seriously simplify its message and product line if it wants to compete.
I never get this "Not like Apple, must be bad" mentality.
This comment makes no sense to me for two reasons: 1) They're doing something wholly different than Apple; they're not trying to make The Phone (TM), they're trying to make a bunch of phones that fit different needs, and 2) They already compete. And quite well, I might add, since they're the global leader in smartphone sales for the most recent quarter. http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/15/gartners-q3-2011-smartpho...
If Samsung can win the bottom of the pyramid from Nokia, they don't need to compete directly with Apple, and it's a far bigger market.
I like that they make multiple phones. But at a certain point, they're overextending. Surely you agree they need to pare it down, even a little.
You're right- when people want a phone that's not an iPhone, they will look at the Samsung phones. But consumers who want a phone because the image they think it will portray will get the iPhone. It's a status symbol. A Samsung phone doesn't have the same effect. But with this ad, Samsung looks like they're trying to become an alternative to Apple. They need to get their act together and decide who they really want to be.
How young/hip are you? There's a huge market on Facebook, and a huge market that believes Facebook is the Internet. Facebook sells phones.
[EDITED for clarity]