An analysis of Bloomberg BusinessWeek noticed how an ad campaign of South Korean company Samsung could be a strategic mistake, estranging an entire category of potential customers. The mistake of the company would be the way Samsung advertise its products by throwing irony at Apple fans. This campaign might estrange an entire category of potential customers and also might be fueling the disputes in the virtual environment between fans of the two rival sides.
Since last year, Samsung has produced several commercials which mock Apple fans. They are painted as waiting in endless lines in front of Apple stores to buy the new iPhone, exaggerating the quality of the product. At one point another character is introduced in the scene who look like “ordinary people” and uses a Samsung Galaxy smartphone nonchalantly, to the astonishment of Apple”cultists”. Advertisements end in a mockery of iPhone fans.
Samsung’s strategy is at least unusual, reads BusinessWeek analysis as it attacks fans of its rival, which is usually an important target group of potential customers for the marketing department.
Moreover, Apple is currently on the market with a single smartphone model that is periodically improved and placed in the most exclusive price segment. Thus, a client from iPhone camp would probably avoid cheaper Samsung phones preferring premium models with a much higher profit margin.
Irony has been found before in duels between big companies in the IT industry, even coming from Apple in TV commercials where the company from Cupertino taunted Microsoft products – but never as a direct attack on rival’s clients.
Apple fans and followers of Google Android operating system often find themselves in heated arguments in the comments section of articles on smartphones and tablets. Like any dispute on the internet, discussion often degenerate into mutual irony and invective exchanges between the two sides. They deviate from the normal debate based on the characteristics of the two mobile platforms and leave aside the right of subjective preference.
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