Is Marketing why Samsung got so big this year?

Samsung Outspends Apple in Marketing

Apple iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2

This past year there was a significant shift in the smartphone world. Samsung has vaulted up the charts and have become a huge player alongside Apple. With the launch of Apple iPhone, the smartphone industry was for a while a one big-player industry. As blackberries and palms faded into obscurity, there was Apple and everyone else.

Was their increased market share due to marketing?

Here’s a question: How much of that has been due to Samsung’s increased marketing spend? No one likes to think that just seeing more advertising is affecting them in anyway, but companies would not spend millions of dollars if there was no evidence of it working. I see Samsung ads everywhere I go. They’ve plastered billboards and their commercials are all over the media. Not long ago, Samsung was just another player, but now the attitude of most is that Samsung is very good alternative – perhaps the only real alternative to the iPhone.

Samsung made a strategic play to attack Apple directly in their ads as well as blanket media with their brand. Check out the new spend figures below. Samsung increased their advertising by 5x.

Samsung Apple Ad Spend

What do you think?

  • How much do you believe marketing played in the role of their increased brand awareness?

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7 Comments

  1. I am not sure if it was as much marketing or the fact that after Apple (and the world) lost Steve Jobs, people did not feel that the company had the voice it once did. That combined with lots of disappointment from the iPhone updates. It’s an interesting trend to see more die hard Apple users make the move.

  2. anyone with a grain of sense would’ve pegged Apple
    as the ultimate consumer electronics master….Just a year or two ago,
    it seemed like Apple had it all sewn up with the iPhone and iPad. Every
    sensible person had money on Apple.it’s now clear that the future of personal computing is consolidation in a single portable device; most likely a smartphone.

  3. I was wondering the same thing recently. I bought the S3 about 6 months ago based on the reviews at the time and think its a great phone. But yes I do think marketing is why Samsung became so popular this year. The commercials showing people touching phones and transferring data and the dig on people waiting in line for an Iphone defiantly helped.

  4. I didn’t realize that Samsung has grown so popular. I know I’ve had some disappointments with my iPhone and have tossed around the idea of changing phones when my next upgrade is due. Perhaps their marketing is making a difference.

  5. Samsung is doing a good job pushing the tech envelope. The industry needs competition to keep things moving forward. I’m posting this comment using my brand new Nexus 7. Its my first Android device. As a tech consultant, I had to own something running the OS so I could learn how to configure and troubleshoot them for my customers.

  6. Did marketing play a role? Yes. But is this the only reason Samsung is growing so quickly? No. The fact is Steve Jobs played a major role in innovation of Apple products. With the absence of Steve Jobs, Apple is just another player in the market. Plus their iOS quality is degrading with every update. Remember the Apple maps fiasco?

  7. besides marketing..samsung rocks for its good low budget phones as well as high end phone…samsung’s high end phone has some really nice features.. which is faraway from other competetor.

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