Samsung

Let me start by admitting two things:  I think their products are above average and most of the mobile computing / telephony I own is Apple.  I want to own up to assumptions and bias at the outset.

OK, here goes..

I want to like this company - brand upstarts, taking on the incumbent mindshare owner, competing hard to bring out great products and stimulating a customer-value oriented technology bonanza.  But I have a tremendously hard time looking past what I'm going to call some of THE WORST MARKETING AND ADVERTISING IN THE WORLD.

These guys (That's not sexist, they're Korean and that's the way it is there), don't have a clue.  If they did have a clue, they've lost it in a legal fight, as they probably stole it from someone else.  (Too catty ?)
I'm not talking about their intent by the way - the intent is spot on.  Gain enough mindshare from doing big things like Olympic coverage and sitting all over their big competitor's product launches.  Great intent.  Execution wise, it's hugely lacking though.

You may have seen the current TV ad featuring a young man that 'fits' into the line up outside what looks like an Apple store.  He plays with a Galaxy S3, and it ends up he is saving the space for his parents. Ha ha goes the commercial's intended punchline iPhone's are no longer cool - old people want them too. It's cute, and exactly the wrong message.

Why's that you say?  You recalled Samsung and that was the point.

If Samsung had a clue, they'd realize that the percentage of purchases that line up is sub 2% of your opening sales (case in point, Apple sold a 'disappointing' 5M units that first weekend, and I guarantee nowhere close to that number lined up).  The people that do line up are traditionally the "innovators" (This is Everett Roger's definition, adapted by Geoffrey Moore) and relative to others they have no budgets; and everyone in society looks askew at them as if they have technology ADD.

What Samsung showed us was Mom and Dad buying the phone...that's us - the majority of society, those not cutting edge. In other words, it's still good enough for some geeks that still line up, and it's usable enough for Mom and Dad, you know - regular people.  Everytime I see that ad from Samsung, I want to get into a line at an Apple store, as Samsung just validated Apple were the choice for normal people.  The poor guy whose parents wanted the new iPhone5 can't even talk his own family into using the Galaxy he has.  Ug.

This ad, like much of the positioning Samsung has done with their tablet product range highlights that they don't seem to understand how to market themselves versus the competition.  Which is a shame, as Apple needs to be kept sharp by competitors.  Otherwise they'll get complacent and we all lose.