This Samsung mobile phone commercial made me laugh — and not just for the “Dude, you’re a barista” line. Mostly I laughed because of the predictable outcry from Apple fanatics in the comment area on YouTube and the equally weak, but more formal rebuttals, that popped up out there, including this one.
The basic gist of both the outcry and the rebuttals is that an attack on Apple is an assault on genius and upon potential converts.
The convert alienation argument always amuses me. It’s so reflexive and narcissistic in its assumption that the Apple base is:
1. Large enough to warrant conversion
2. Even susceptible to conversion in the first place
I’m afraid the actual mathematical equation is pretty cruel and actually quite simple: Addressable universe equals the number of adults considering a new phone purchase minus the number of idiots who would spend the night in line for a new phone.
The scale model of this equation is right in front of us on Youtube: 680,960 views minus 380 dislikes. That’s pretty simple and favorable math.
The success of Samsung’s effort is predicated on the audience’s ability to recognize a fool when he/she sees one and then making the decision to not be one, but also upon the rabidity of the loyalist/fanboy response. That last bit is the one we always miss.
Basically, Samsung is banking on the very people that they will offend the most to propagate the message for them via social media, email, blogs, etc. This is where it seems to have fallen apart. I was in both BlogPulse and Google Trends today, and saw no major spikes in “galaxy 2” or “Samsung commercial” mentions or searches since the commercial was released.
This could imply a couple of things: initial distribution was low/too low and/or it didn’t really tick off the fanboys at all. The latter has serious implications for Apple. Could it be that the absence of Mr. Jobs has exposed that we were dealing with a “cult of personality” after all? That rising to the defense of a company as opposed to a personality isn’t worth a fanboy’s energy? If that’s so, then Apple is in the same boat as its competitors, where marketing and innovation are nearly equally paired, and neither is a sufficient screen for the shortcomings of the other.
I would also argue that Apple is suddenly at a significant disadvantage created by the loss of one of the great marketers of all time since (and everyone, please feel free to fight about this) most of their innovation of late was primarily in the marketing space versus the technology space. These are fighting words, and maybe I’ve said them just to gain the assurance that there might still be some fanboys out there.
For the record: I have a 4G iPhone, an iPod Touch, and a drawer full of previous iPods, Shuffles and Nanos. Each works, and was great in its time, but I’ve never been a fan. If anything, I’ve resented the accelerated rate of engineered obsolescence, the absence of memory expansion and proprietary batteries.
But what has really always irked me is the absence of solid competition. I love that Samsung is taking a big swing at Apple, but they better bring the product to back it up. Oh, and I sincerely hope that you former fanboys out there find something worthy of your passion again.
T3 is excited to be a part of the upcoming Texas Photo Roundup, a seminar and portfolio review for photographers on February 3, 2012 in Austin, TX.
Registration is now open. More information can be found here.
This event is sponsored by the American Society of Media Photographers Austin/San Antonio and the Austin Center for Photography (of which I’m very proud to be a founding member).
The morning event will be an interactive seminar, “Real World Marketing Strategies for Photographers”. The afternoon will find art buyers, creative directors and photo editors from Texas Monthly, EmDash, Wired, Men’s Health and other industry experts conducting one-on-one photographer portfolio reviews.
Attendance may be limited, so register early. I hope to see you there.
Another highly anticipated news conference, another game-changing technical development from Apple. Welcome to iCloud.
What is iCloud, and Why Does it Matter?
Simply put, iCloud is a cloud-computing service that stores all your content remotely, so you always have access to your music, photos, apps, calendars and documents on all your devices — your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac or PC.
To understand the need for iCloud, let’s consider two common pain points:
• Inability to share content across devices: Most people have multiple devices and want to access the same content across them. For example, when people take pictures on their iPhone, they want seamless access to the pictures on their iPad.
• Hassle of upgrading: Technology upgrades are a hassle. When people get a new phone, wouldn’t it be great if all content, apps and settings were effortlessly ready to go on the new equipment?
iCloud claims to be the solution.
Image courtesy: Apple.com
Whether it’s your calendar, music, apps, books, photos, device settings or app data, iCloud will automatically sync these across all your Apple devices. For example, when you take a picture on your iPhone, it will be pushed to iCloud and then downloaded to your iPad. What makes iCloud unique is, “There’s nothing new to learn. It all just works,” as Steve Jobs eloquently stated at the iCloud press conference. Such seamless functionality continues to separate Apple from Google and Amazon.
Nearly a third of all U.S. households now have at least four electronic devices, and there are no signs of this slowing down with the constant releases of new “must-have” devices. This velocity of device fragmentation has sparked a need to digitally unify all the devices, with a service like iCloud, which allows people to use whichever device gives them the best experience in a given environment.
If you’re on a subway, the best experience may be on an iPhone. At home, the iPad. At work, a desktop. We have always used devices based on how convenient and fitting they are to specific environments. With iCloud unifying all content and settings, the iPhone and iPad essentially become the same device, just with a different face and skin.
What can we learn from the iCloud announcement?
• Device fragmentation is happening and will continue.
• For consumers, iCloud means life will be easier: it helps manage and streamline content across devices.
• For marketers, this means there is even more of a need now for multi-screen experiences.
Multi-screen experiences
We continue to see an evolution in how consumers access content, moving more and more to multi-screens. Successful marketers will consider a multi-screen approach, developing content that not only is optimized across several devices, but that interacts and drives users to viewing it on multiple devices.
With more devices and more unification between devices, the definition of brand experience will begin to morph and demand components of a multi-screen experience. This means the entire experience path will be much longer, as content on one device interacts with, drives to and is personalized toward content on another device. In this world, insight, relevance and interactivity become increasingly important.
Marketers have many questions to answer. How can we best guide consumers across content and devices? How can we influence the consumer who’s using our iPhone app to read our article and sign up for our newsletter on their iPad? Clearly, we need to study the psychology, decision paths and effects of consumers using multiple devices. At issue is discovering how exposure to brand content across multiple devices affects consumers’ perceptions and actions, and how to pair specific devices to create the best experiences.
Read more: What iOS5 Means for Marketers
