The latest happening in the advertising world is Samsung’s attack on Apple with their new ad poster that is spreading thick and fast on all social media platforms. The new ad that has featured iPhone 5 as low end to Samsung Galaxy S III has also hit the newspapers of US on Monday.
The new advertisement came from Samsung that directly compares their Galaxy S III with iPhone soon after the verdict in the patent case went in favor of Apple. As per the verdict, Samsung has to pay $1billion as damages to Apple. Against this context, Samsung’s new print ad is certainly a bold move, but it is questionable from a ethical point of view.
The print ad with the tagline “it doesn’t take a genius” is already making hype in the social media. Samsung in the prints ad had listed out all the features in favor of Galaxy S III (obviously they will) and implies that the it’s take no brain exercise to decide to choose Galaxy S III over iPhone5.
But what stuck me is that, in the ad, the popular features of iPhone5 were missing. It is obvious and well known that an ad produced by Samsung would definitely boast of its features. But, features of iPhone5 like FaceTime, iCloud, or iTunes, iOS 6 got omitted, which throws up doubt over the reliability of this ad. A company like Samsung should have definitely guarded the ad against these visible short comings.
It is true that Samsung had to do something aggressively after their failure in patent case against Apple and a strategy like an ad campaign was necessary. But is it ethical to stab a competitor’s product directly, that too with a biased and subjective approach?. No one is saying here that Samsung Galaxy III is inferior to any device but they could have focused on their own product features rather trying to stab iPhone5 which can put them into more trouble if Apple makes any legal move. There are certain unconfirmed inside news that Samsung is also working on videos ads as well.
However, a few parodies of the ad have also started circulating the social media created by Apple fans giving a hit back to Samsung in its own ad design. The ad with tagline “don’t settle for cheaper plastic” features Samsung Galaxy III as cheap plastic device.
The ad war of the smart phones is really a major concern. Any product going for an open war will have a bad reputation about the company in the minds of consumers…and this is something crucial in case of Smartphone as reputation of the company is one attribute that influences the purchasing decision of a high end costly device like smart phone, which is often a status symbol more than an absolute necessity.
