It's that time again, though I won't say that time of year, because some of the major smartphone makers seem to launch new high(er) end models with alarming frequency, more than once per year! To wit, Samsung, who have been kicking some you-know-what in the smartphone wars, where a larger and larger bite of the Apple is being chewed on in South Korea.
The issue is not just how much revenue the Korean giant is hacking away from fatcat Apple's profits, but frankly the main issue is how much cool they have stolen from their extremely litigious nemesis in recent years. It doesn't help that the great innovator and aesthete, Steve Jobs, has since gone, even if his own lust for dominance and the dollars that go with it had started to eat away at his own supposed "coolness". Look at his alleged role as the kingpin behind a price-fixing scheme for e-books with various major publishers, for example - pure unadulterated money lust and greed.
I think it is an excellent thing when an arrogant superpower (be it in political fighting or smartphone wars) gets a taste of its own medicine, and sees some former wannabe suddenly rise up and catch the wave, drawing the public's imagination and bucks away from it. Samsung has done this brilliantly, almost alienating iPhone users as instantaneously "unhip" - when they used to be the ones showing off their phones in public places. How awful!
The latest ads are a little mellower than of old, but the point is made clearly nonetheless - Samsung is cool and the Galaxy S series is for the young and hip, while iPhone users have been recategorized as the old and in need of (a) new hip! It's brilliantly entertaining of course, even if it may be a little less lighthearted than it appears, but for us Galaxy owners it's just impossible to not crack a smile or laugh out loud at some of the images drawn by the ads. It's all good clean fun, but very serious fun involving gazillions of dollars.
SIV is an amazing beast, quite naturally, and perhaps what Samsung do best is turn these ads into a feast from the beast, showing off all sorts of "cool" new features that may or not change daily lives, but that's not always the point. A brand new Porsche Boxster Turbo S may do all sorts of things on an autobahn in Germany but which are rendered useless by the daily commute from one side of an urban sprawl to the other every day for work. But who cares - everyone stares at your car, right? Isn't that as much the point?
Personally, I love the idea that my ever handy smartphone can now turn on my HDTV (if I had an HDTV) and even suggest programs to me. Or, when my own fingers are sticky sweet from my Belfast Cowboy Smoky Spiced Whiskey Rib sauce, that I can wave a hand over the phone and answer a call - while the dejected iPhone user tries to do the same and nothing happens - awww! It's all about being included, and not feeling left out, and this is the genius of the Samsung brand and the marketing thereof.
The Korean company spent a reported $300M on marketing in 2012, and looks ready and willing to keep on spending at that level in 2013. Good luck to them! They make an incredible product that was unthinkable several years ago, and they race on relentlessly, putting superior products in our hands that truly do and have changed modern life. Apple was there first, but Steve Jobs is not the only gifted entrepreneur and aesthete out there, and anyway, he needed this kind of challenge to keep him on his toes. I don't think that anyone can argue that iPhone has seen anything significantly new and exciting since iPhone4 - it's been more like treading water.
The Samsung Galaxy SII, SIII and SIV are beautiful devices, all are beautifully crafted and each came/comes with top-of-line functionality. I know I can't look at Apple and iPhone the way I used to anymore, and I was an iPhone guy for a while there - but Samsung just do it better and often cheaper. As the consumer, we have the right to change track when someone runs ahead and simultaneously gives us a better deal - this is going to be become even more common (rampant?!) when the dreaded three year commitments evaporate. Bring it on, baby.
For today, all I can say, when thinking of their brand, their product line and their advertising, is - rave on, Samsung, rave on! - Kevin Mc ;)
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