Samsung went after Apple in a major way last September when it unleashed its ‘The Next Big Thing Is Already Here’ ad campaign for the Galaxy S3. The ads, which poked fun at Apple and its then-newly-launched iPhone, garnered praise for their style, and today a top Samsung executive has spoken of the significance of the initiative.
In an interview with AdNews, Samsung Australia’s chief marketing officer Arno Lenior called the series a tipping point (yes, it’s a long quote, but bear with us):
That really did mark quite a tipping point for us globally. We were able to tell a cheeky story – if you think about it, we’re a Korean company starting to really mess with the order of things.
We’ve been able to do some good things from that [campaign]. The interesting thing about it from my perspective is that some of it is not the best work you’ve ever seen, some of it is the best work you’ve ever seen, but it’s getting people talking, that’s what I really love about it.
You’ve got fanboys after fanboys going, ‘You can’t put that out there’, and then the Samsung fans saying, ‘Yes, you can’, and they’re starting to have that conversation, which is brilliant. So that piece of content has been amazing for us, both globally and here in Australia.
Lenior claims Samsung is still the challenger, despite a dominant presence in a number of segments — including smartphone and overall mobile handset shipments. That’s something he puts down to the company’s “state of mind” and desire to grow its brand and challenge its rivals.
Do these words mean we can expect more of the same in September, when Apple looks set to launch its next iPhone?
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➤ Ads mocking Apple ‘marked a tipping point’ for us: Samsung [AdNews]
In case you forgot, here’s one of the ads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM
Headline images via JOSEP LAGO/AFP/Getty Images
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