I thought Samsung’s days of incredibly cheesy promotions, aimed at winning over Apple customers, peaked in 2013 with its “next big thing” ad campaign. But yesterday’s “join the flipside” commercial, which hit 9.6 million views in a day, shows there is life in the old strategy yet.
The ad features a group of young campers, and presumably iPhone owners, desperately trying to avoid Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 4. The premise is that once someone sets their eyes on the foldable phone, they can’t resist its allure and they become instant converts. This is told in the style of a cheesy teen horror movie on a deadly campsite.
The ad shows off the phone’s unique foldable features, like taking selfies and watching content using flex mode. It also plays up the nostalgic value of flipping your phone open to answer a call, which is presumably what inspired the 90s-horror theme of the ad. This isn’t a new strategy from the Korean company, it has a penchant for going directly after Apple with aggressive promotions, which in some cases has been successful.
In 2015 Samsung launched its “ultimate test drive” campaign, which allowed iPhone users to try out the then new Samsung Galaxy 6+ Edge or Galaxy Note (RIP) 5 for 30 days for $1. This promotion landed roughly a month before the iPhone 6s was released and Samsung quickly claimed a victory, saying it had ran out of Galaxy phones allocated for the promotion. I wrote at the time that the iPhone owners who borrowed a Galaxy device were impressed by the futuristic design and features, but the bloated software let the entire experience down—a familiar story for Samsung hardware over the years.
The 2013 next big thing campaign struck a similar note by mocking Apple fans—wearing trilbies and flat caps, of course—lining up for hours to buy the latest iPhone. Their sole reason for purchasing it is because they’re desperate to be seen with an iPhone, rather it being a good device, the ad hints. A reality that still applies today. The promo ends with queueing people being blown away by a bystander’s Samsung Galaxy S2 that has 4G and a big screen. Simpler times. This might also be the birth of the ‘Android had it first’ meme too.
The heady days of (temporarily) giving away a flagship phone for $1 might be over, but Samsung is handing out a less impressive $50 store credit with all Galaxy Z Flip 5 pre-orders on its website. Just like Sega’s aggressive promotion and marketing tactics in the 90s against then market leader Nintendo, this the reality of being the challenger up against a behemoth like Apple, which doesn’t engage in discounts and giveaways like Samsung does. The Korean company has slashed prices for its flagship products, across all ranges, a couple of times this year.
We don’t know how effective this kind of strategy is when it comes to winning over iPhone owners, but that might not be the only goal. Samsung lawyers in a major 2014 patent lawsuit claimed that The next big thing campaign drove Apple “crazy” according to internal documents. Winning over iPhone owners might be one goal, but it looks like a good ol’ bit of corporate trolling is another.
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