"Don't settle for cheap plastic": Apple fans respond to Samsung's 'genius' jibe

In a round of ads that began this week, Samsung takes direct aim at Apple, claiming its Galaxy phone is a better choice than the new iPhone 5.

While going after a competitor in an ad is not a new technique, the tone of the Samsung ads is decidedly sarcastic for a technology company emerging from a $1 billion defeat in the latest patent battle between the two companies.

One of the ads features the company's new Galaxy S III alongside the iPhone 5. The ad, which began appearing in print publications over the weekend, features an image of an iPhone tilted to the right and a white Galaxy phone tilted to the left under the headline, "It doesn't take a genius." Below each phone is a list of its features.

"This is a marketing campaign; it's not a legal campaign," said Teri Daley, a Samsung representative. "As marketers we're focused on educating consumers. We feel like they've somewhat been led down a blind path when truly that innovation has stopped a long time ago."

The genius reference could be interpreted as a swipe at the Apple customer support employees, who work at the company's "Genius Bars." This summer, Apple started a television ad campaign featuring a Genius Bar employee.The campaign was short-lived.

Todd Pendleton, Samsung's chief marketing officer, said the "It doesn't take a genius" ad was not meant to insult iPhone owners. "Apple users or fanboys, or whatever you call them, they're not the target of this work at all," he said. "If you look at the core essence of the work, it really is showing an innovation story. A more innovative product in this case is the GS III."

Innovation has been at the heart of the dispute between the companies. In August, a California jury ruled that Samsung had infringed upon a series of mobile technology patents and awarded Apple $1 billion in damages.

In a statement after the verdict, Samsung showed it was still in fighting spirit. "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies," the company said. It vowed that the defeat was "not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple's claims."

In an interview, Mr. Pendleton said Samsung's new ads were part of a larger campaign for the Galaxy S III that began in June and included ads on television, online, in print and in outdoor areas, like posters at bus stations. Major markets for the company include Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, he said.

A headline on a Samsung ad that ran in newspapers on Sept. 9, days before Apple introduced its iPhone, says, "The Next Big Thing Is Already Here." Samsung used a similar tag line in 2011, "The Next Big Thing Is Here," to promote its 4G service and the Galaxy S II. Television ads for that campaign showed people waiting in line for the latest Apple device while Samsung owners showed off the features of phones they already had.

Adding the word "already" to this latest iteration of the campaign signaled the brand's focus on the iPhone 5 coming to market. The technology blog Gizmodo published a collection of homemade ads that Apple fans created in response to the latest Samsung ads. Headlines included "Don't settle for cheap plastic" and "In high school, it doesn't take a genius to understand who is just a bully."

Apple, which declined to comment about the Samsung campaign, has undertaken its share of ad campaigns mocking the competition.

Ken Segall, the ad guru who worked on Apple's "Think Different" marketing campaign and the author of "Insanely Simple," a book about Apple, said that over the years, Apple learned to apply a light touch of humor when it mocked competitors in ads. For example, in its previous "Get a Mac" TV commercials, a PC, personified by a pudgy John Hodgman, exchanged comedic jabs with a Mac, played by a handsome Justin Long.

In 1985, Apple ran an unpopular TV commercial during the Super Bowl that depicted PC users as mindless lemmings leaping to their death from a cliff. "It was widely panned because they were insulting the ones they were trying to talk to," said Mr. Segall, who worked at TBWA\Chiat\Day, the agency that produced the ad.

Samsung's new ads are repeating the same mistake, he said, by making iPhone customers seem foolish. "It seems like an odd way to seduce them because you're basically telling them they're idiots," he said.

While Apple has outspent Samsung on advertising wireless devices, both companies have increased their ad spending in that category over the last year, according to data from Kantar Media, part of WPP. From January to June, Apple spent $193.1 million on advertising mobile products, while Samsung spent $99.9 million. In 2011, Apple spent $104.1 million during the same period, while Samsung spent $6.95 million.

Tom Denari, the president and a principal at the advertising agency Young & Laramore, said the Samsung campaign was reminiscent of the Pepsi and Coke wars of the 1970s and '80s.

"It's a classic challenger strategy, where No. 2 throws stones at the leader, in order to attract attention to itself," Mr. Denari said.

Any brand would like to have the kind of loyalty that Apple gets from its fans, Mr. Denari said, "because these fans identify themselves so closely to the brand that they feel that Samsung is not only attacking Apple, but they feel like they are being personally attacked as well."

Bill Winchester, chief creative officer of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs, said Samsung should decide what its brand stands for instead of responding to whatever Apple does and competing with Apple based on the features of the phone. "At the end of the day, don't you think these phones more or less do the same thing?" said Mr. Winchester, who uses an iPhone. "We carry these as a prop to tell people in the world what we are. As soon as you get down to features and starting to compare features, you're not really going to convince me at that level."

Copyright 2012 The New York Times News Service