Samsung Electronics Co is going all out on its marketing and advertising efforts by having plans of spending over $14 billion, an amount more than Iceland’s GDP, this year; however, the company is not able to reap the desired fruits.
The company’s marketing and advertising budget includes expenses on TV publicity and cinema ads, on billboards, and at sports and arts events from the Sydney Opera House to New York’s Radio City Music Hall. The South Korean technology giant’s budget is even more than what Google paid for acquiring Motorola’s handset business. Samsung, with a market value of $227 billion, aims at making its brand as popular as Apple’s heading up with its aggressive marketing and promotion splurge.
Samsung-sponsored short-film contest finale held last month at the Sydney Opera House garnered very poor reviews for blatant product placement in a series of ‘behind the scenes’ videos. In fact viewers in Britain panned a product placement deal with ITV’s popular X-Factor talent show.
Samsung’s recent Galaxy smartphone New York launch event came under scrutiny as for being sexist, portraying giggling women chatting about jewelry and nail polish while the men discussed the new phone. Company’s new fridge and washing machine South Africa launch which featured swim-suit dancers drew similar complaints.
According to Thomson Reuter’s data, Samsung spends a bigger share of its annual revenue on advertising and promotion campaigns – around 5.4 percent of sales more than any other of the world’s top 20 companies. Apple spends just 0.6 percent while General Motors spends 3.5 percent on their advertising and promotion efforts.
Samsung, in a statement to Reuters, said it will “continue to leverage our brand power to maintain growth momentum, while focusing on optimizing the efficiency of our marketing activities”.
J.K. Shin, head of the group’s mobile business, was recently spotted saying: “Our product innovation and marketing strategy have made Samsung the world’s most preferred smartphone brand,” and “Now we’ll move from the most preferred brand to become one of the world’s leading aspirational brands.”
