Samsung generous embarrassment of marketing

At the 2014 Academy Award ceremony, in addition to Leonardo again miserably with the Oscars pass the brush, the audience talked about the most likely star self-timer incident: Oscar's awards ceremony, the host Ai Lennon DeGeneres led a group of stars including Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt to take a selfie photo. Many call the show "Oscars' most expensive group photo," and the group's Twitter feed has reached a historical record.

However attentive audience later discovered, in fact, this is only part of Samsung's marketing activities: the stars self-mobile phone is the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. But what's interesting is that after returning to the locker room, Allen re-took out his iPhone and started using it, confirming no one was around.

Marketing as the first strategy

When it comes to apples, many people will surely think of design and innovation. But when it comes to Samsung, many people think of advertising and marketing. In 2013, Samsung's marketing spending hit a new historical record. According to data from Enders Analysis analyst Benedict Evans, Samsung's advertising and other marketing spending in 2013 was almost $ 14 billion, more than Google spent on Motorola's mobile acquisition and reached 3 times the market capitalization of HTC, or even More than a year of Iceland's national GDP.

So in recent years, Samsung why big money to increase marketing costs? In short, this is to increase the Samsung brand or product-specific impression in the minds of users, the so-called "Mind Share."

"Samsung has developed the best Android phone", which is the industry consensus before 2013. However, Galaxy S4's performance last year changed the industry's opinion. In contrast with the HTC One and iPhone 5 evaluation, this phone did not stand out. On the other hand, the rise of vendors such as Huawei, LG and ZTE exerted even greater pressure on Samsung.

Insiders pointed out that before 2013, Samsung's successful model of the product is a large screen + from the United States operating system. However, as the screen size almost reaches the limit of one-handed control, the differentiation of the Android system is very difficult. Unless there is a revolutionary breakthrough, the space for Samsung's product improvement will become smaller and smaller. As a result, the focus of market competition has shifted more toward price and brand recognition. Samsung's costly marketing strategy is a powerful weapon to enhance brand awareness.

Composition of marketing activities

According to information provided by former Samsung employees at Quora, a social Q & A website, Samsung's marketing budget mainly consists of four parts: the marketing development fund allocated to the factory, the brand image budget for the company's overall image, the office fund allocated to the sales department 3% of annual revenue), and global marketing and operating expenses for special marketing activities.

As opposed to content marketing such as traditional advertising, event marketing has become an area of ​​increasing concern for Samsung, including sponsorships for popular entertainment and sporting events. For example, Samsung is a sponsor of this year's Oscars, and Samsung has sponsored Oscars for five years.

There are many sponsorships like Samsung that have included in the past year or so:

- Samsung is the official sponsor of wireless communications at Sochi 2014 Sochi. It is reported that Samsung donated Galaxy mobile phones to athletes, while asking athletes to cover up Apple iPhone logo on the iPhone. In addition, Samsung is a sponsor of the past eight Summer and Winter Olympics.

- Before the World Cup in Brazil, Samsung invested heavily in sponsoring Messi and other 11 world football stars, formed the "Galaxy 11" team to help promote the Galaxy Note 3 and other products.

- In the second half of last year, Samsung and the NBA signed a three-year, $ 100 million sponsorship contract.

- In 2013, Samsung launched an ad titled "You Can Never Think The Next Second" during the "Super Bowl" contest known as the American Spring Festival Gala.

Advantages of event marketing

Event marketing can often achieve better results than traditional advertising. In the current market, advertisers need to take all available opportunities to develop relationships with consumers, enhance the brand image and win the approval of potential consumers. Current consumers do not just focus on a brand when making shopping decisions. Mega events provide a unique opportunity to help advertisers promote their products, visions and qualities.

From this year's Academy Awards ceremony we can see that event marketing can bring many advantages:

1. Big events such as Oscars, Grammys, Super Bowls, World Cups and the Olympics are often impressive and will be hot for a long time. As a result, ads that complement these mega events often have a lasting and profound impact.

2. Large-scale activities usually have a specific group of viewers, such as the Oscars corresponding to film lovers and fan clubs, so targeted marketing more likely to lead to user resonance. When users witness the use of a product by a favorite star, the advertising effect is self-evident.

3. Through the combination with social media, marketing on these large events can stimulate user interaction and form a viral transmission. The star self-Twitter message spread reflects this.

4. Selfie Everyone will play, but many people do not see such a big-name star in the live event Selfie. This year's Oscars star selfie so that people have seen the big star lovely and intimate side. Such marketing arrangements can easily lead to empathy by users, allowing people to identify with the product they are using based on their approval of the celebrity.

The effect needs to be discussed

For marketing purposes only, Samsung is undoubtedly a master familiar with this road. Only a simple marketing arrangements, related to Twitter message forwarding hit a record high. According to Unruly, a market research firm, Samsung was the most successful social video brand in 2013 with the No. 1 share of its marketing videos.

Users share Twitter news and video ads is a measure of social economy, a major criterion, reflecting the degree of user engagement and activity. However, this marketing may promote product sales and performance growth? This may not be the case.

Due to a lack of revolutionary breakthroughs, Samsung smartphone sales growth is slowing. In addition to the hardware parameters to enhance the Galaxy S4 is not much difference with the Galaxy S3, while the Galaxy S5 released last month highlight the motor function, this strategy is still controversial, the effect of time to prove.

Executives at Interbrand, the world's largest brand consultancy, have pointed out that continuous advertising spending may be the best strategy when the brand lacks a clear positioning. However, long-term maintenance of this huge advertising spending will not bring too much benefit. Although no other company currently outperforms Samsung in advertising, it is doubtful whether these ads are effective.

In short, even in the absence of a great product, even a marketing expert like Samsung can not tell a moving story. If the product is not attractive, then it is easy to star on the stage to use Samsung, the audience in exchange for other mobile phones embarrassing situation.