When your newest smartphone heading into 2012 is being compared to a 90’s era Palm Pilot, you’re doing it wrong.
Samsung had been hyping up its newest ad campaign for it’s newest mobile handset, the Galaxy Note, for weeks, and the end result (as shown above) was broadcasted this Sunday as part of the NFL Superbowl Game. The ad features a individual cellphone owner using the new device beside a line of somewhat disgruntled fans of a certain electronics company (it is implied that these are fans of Apple, who are waiting in line for the “next big thing” from Cupertino). As people in the line spot the Note, they are enamoured with the fact that the half-tablet, half-phone includes a stylus. After this the entire block seems to explode into a crazy rendition of The Darkness’ “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” for the final minute of the 90 second clip.
As Mashable reports, the fact that Samsung decided to highlight a stylus – a feature of the once popular Palm Pilot – caught the attention of many viewers: especially given the ad’s tagline “The Next Big Thing Is Already Here”. Twitter users were stupefied by the fact that Samsung’s decided point of differentiation for their newest phone was a staple of the best of 90’s tech. Given some of the other standout features of the Note (namely it’s 5 in. screen, high pixel density, powerful processor) it’s interesting that Samsung decided to position it using the “S-Pen” as the way for the product to be defined by consumers.
Consumers are bombarded with information about products and services, especially during the Super Bowl. Positioning a product through ads allows consumers to simplify the buying process, organizing their thoughts on certain products based on their most impressive features. Samsung’s made this decision easy for consumers, and it doesn’t look like it came off favourably for the company who spent millions on the spot.
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