South Korea's Samsung is trampling rivals and gunning for Apple. Can its hot streak last?
January 22, 2013: 5:00 AM ET
FORTUNE -- To understand how Samsung -- yes, Samsung -- became America's No. 1 mobile phonemaker and thorn in Apple's side, it's helpful to rewind to last fall. On a mid-September morning, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook stepped onto a stage in San Francisco to unveil the iPhone 5. Several hundred miles away, in a Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Los Angeles, a group of marketing executives from Samsung Electronics followed real-time reactions to Cook's remarks. They huddled around tables mounted with laptops and TV screens, carefully tracking each new feature and monitoring the gush of online comments on the new device via blogs and social media sites. As the data flowed in, writers from the company's advertising agency, who were also camped out in the restaurant turned war room, scrambled to craft a response.
Two hours later, when Cook stepped off the stage, the Samsung group was already drafting a series of print, digital, and TV ads. The following week -- as the iPhone 5 went on sale -- the company aired a TV ad mocking Apple "fanboys" queuing up for the new phone. ("The headphone jack is going to be on the bottom!") The 90-second commercial went on to become the most popular tech ad of 2012, garnering more than 70 million views online. More important, in the weeks following the launch of Apple's iPhone 5, Samsung sold a record-breaking number of its own signature smartphone, the Galaxy S III. "We knew this was going to be a big moment in time, when consumers are really paying attention," says Todd Pendleton, chief marketing officer of Samsung's U.S.-based mobile division. "We wanted to take that opportunity and all that energy and make it Samsung's moment."
Click here to see the entire article in Fortune magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment