Samsung is taking the gloves off in its smartphone battle with Apple in a series of quirky ads that do make you chuckle. The big question is whether lines like “dude you’re a barista” and shots at iPhone 4S battery life can sway smartphone fence sitters.
In the world of tech you sometimes get the impression that there are no Apple fence sitters. People love Apple or they hate it. The reality is that most of us are more agnostic. Samsung’s ads mock the fanboys and tout the Galaxy key strengths: 4G, large screen and style.
Apple would obviously counter with Siri, a more integrated OS and a more powerful ecosystem.
You get the idea: There isn’t one phone to satisfy everyone. That’s what makes Samsung’s ads, which have pretty much gone viral today, so interesting. Samsung is trying to do to Apple what Apple did to Microsoft in its “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials. The goal is to make the other guy look a lot less cool.
This Galaxy Nexus ad seems effective to me and gets away from comparing specs or scaring the heck out of you (Why would you ever want a Motorola Droid robot weapon?) and does what Apple has effectively done by showing how seamless things just work without detailed explanations.
Samsung doesn’t go behind the scenes too much with its press release on its “the next big thing is already here” campaign, but the company is going all out. Samsung said:
A 60-second television spot will also air during the Thanksgiving-day NFL games on FOX and CBS, with kick-off times at 12:30pm ET and 4:15pm ET, respectively. The ad will also run on Saturday during televised college football. 15- and 30-second versions of the ad will run on the major broadcast and cable networks from now until Christmas Day.
CBS owns ZDNet so we’ll gladly take the ad revenue, but the bottom line is that Samsung is punching back at Apple. Nice to see a few punches thrown outside of the courtroom and patent lawsuits.
