“Samsung has drawn criticism Monday after viewers realized that it was reusing a child actress from an iPhone 4S ad for a Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE spot,” Electronista reports.
“The 30-second segment (below), since pulled from Samsung’s official YouTube account, has the same actress as seen in an iPhone 4S camera ad,” Electronista reports. “It also takes a slightly Apple-like tack in focusing on the human side of using a tablet rather than Samsung’s usual emphasis on hardware.”
Electronista reports that Samsung is “facing numerous lawsuits and trade disputes for allegedly copying the iPad with its existing Galaxy Tab line. Fueling suspicion may be Samsung’s demonstrated overeagerness to beat Apple directly; it vowed to change the Galaxy Tab 10.1 after being caught off-guard by the iPad 2 and, conveniently, had a more iPad 2-like design in just five weeks.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple ought to immediately announce that their executive team just held hands and swan dived off the Empire State Building, then wait a week or so to announce that it was all just a New Year’s joke and, “Oh, yeah, our condolences to Samsung on the unfortunate pancaking of their executive team.”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jai Gill” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Now Samsung’s slavishly copying Apple’s iPad television ads (with videos) – December 30, 2011
Samsung is so not copying Apple, here’s proof – September 28, 2011
Oh Samsung, you are making this too easy – September 24, 2011
Why are Apple’s icons on the wall of Samsung’s store? – September 24, 2011
Samsung threatens to step up patent fight with ‘free riding’ Apple Inc. – September 23, 2011
Samsung’s ‘Instinct’ is obviously to make Apple iPhone knockoffs – April 1, 2008
I don’t get it, why did they pull it?
This reminds me of the paranoia doctrine espoused by Intel and Microsoft years ago. What Samsung is doing is gross, but it is probably wise from a survival perspective.
How great would it be if a giant meteor razed samsung HQ
It would be a large rock, in the shape of an apple with one bite taken out of it.
😀
I’d say that based on the above, as well as the accumulated patent infringements, Samsuck (being Samstuck for original ideas) have adopted a new mission statement:
Copy Apple. Copy Apple Products. Blatantly mislead the consumer. If M$, Goggle et al can do it, so can we!
There will come a day of “correction” when these transgressions will be account for…
Customer Abuse pays off in the short run.
But then the future arrives along with
Customer Retribution. 😆
To be fair, a lot of the same generic actors and actresses appear in numerous ads. For example, I noticed the actress in the Kindle ad from a while back, the one where she sits poolside saying she can read her Kindle just fine in the sunlight is the same actress in the TireRack ads.
I’ve been producing advertising for nearly thirty years. It’s one thing for an actor to appear in a variety of commercials targeted to different markets. This is a very bizarre act for any advertiser to do; to not only copy the ad style of a direct competitor, but to use the same actress/model previously used by by said competitor in their ads is unheard of. This is either extreme incompetence by the ad agency or extreme arrogance by the client. There are thousands of little girls they could have cast in this role. To choose the same little girl seen in the Apple commercial simply blows me away.
I’ve been in the ad business for over forty years, copywriter, producer, creative director, then for the last thirty as photographer.
Obviously this is another copying horror from Samsung, but there is likely a breach of contract, or at least ethics here, regarding the model. The release signed by the girl’s parents or guardian should have included a prohibition against her modeling in competitors’ advertising for at least six months(sometimes more) after the last ad cycle of the Apple commercial. In any event, modeling agencies are well aware not to book their clients for such a thing without approval.
In part this is Apple’s fault. They probably could have contractually restricted actors in their commercials from appearing in commercials for competitors. They might have to pay the actor more for that restriction. I think they’ll be considering this in the future.
Any lawyers out there wish to offer their knowledge?
And then their is the Jerry Seinfeld case.
Youhave to understand the Korean mind. This is an in your face insult directed at apple management. They are saying we can do anything. We have the money to payoff the payola media ( which is easy since one of them hate jobs and his legacy).
These are scumbags who are arrogant and laughing that the Korean economy is doing well by stealing IP. They have no gratitude to anericans who are actually protecting them from the nutcase in the north. US troops should pull out of Korea (south kore economy will tank).
Samsung is a chaebol, a conglomerate supported by the Korean government. A chaebol operates through interlocking holdings, has opaque standard operating systems and tends to engage in every business conceivable. It has great financial support through the blessing of the government. Thus it can act like a mafia with impunity. So it is no wonder it has no compunction in engaging industrial espionage and slavish plagiarism of other’s work and ideas. Until the government of the United States realize the insidiousness of such methods, no US company can compete fairly with Samsung. But then, politicians in the US are a corrupted lot who will accept money from Samsung’s lobbying to hurt their own people.
@vsp sez: “Samsung is a chaebol”
Read: “Samsung is a cabal”
EXACTLY:
Cabal
1. A conspiratorial group of plotters or intriguers: “Espionage is quite precisely it — a cabal of powerful men, working secretly” (Frank Conroy).
2. A secret scheme or plot.
intr.v. ca·balled, ca·bal·ling, ca·bals
To form a cabal; conspire.
This is called a “conflict” in the biz. One would assume the girl’s contract requires Apple to have worldwide exclusive rights for her appearing in the Apple ad. Exception would be Apple’s ad is strictly for mobile phone while Samsung’s is for a tablet, or Apple excluded certain regions, but I doubt it. Agent screwed up, casting office screwed up, Samsung screwed up.
Copycat concept notwithstanding, there’s so many actors out there, did they really have to cast the same little girl? How stupid.
Here’s the thing: if they make their commercials too much like Apple’s, they will inadvertantly be advertising Apple’s products. It’s a known fact that most people do not pay attention to commercials. The commercials play in the background while the viewer’s primary attention is elsewhere. For this reason, if a commercial apes the style of another commercial, the commercial will often be misremembered as an ad for the original commercial’s product.
In other words, thanks for the free advertising, Samsung, you unoriginal, uncreative morons.
——RM
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…Samsung has no choice but to copy Apple…. They know they do not have the talent to do it unassisted… And there only hope is to copy the winners play book. (no pun intended )…it will not help them but what other choice do they have… Coming up with their own ideas is not a remotely possible solution.
Samesong: It is said chimpanzees learn behaviors through observation and imitation and then teach these traits to other chimpanzees.
Actually, they’re more like the kid with pissy-smelling pants sitting next to you in primary school and copying your answers. euchh!
What no one has mentioned is how pathetic and self hating this commercial is for the Korean home market were it was shown.
How f$cking SAD that they can’t bring themselves to show a cute, tech-savy Korean family with an adorable little Korean tyke. Noooooo they want to be Amurcikans so gol darn much that they absolutely hate there own faces.
I disagree. In the USA we sell beer with 20-somethings, weight loss with women, and toilet paper with bears. The buyers of these things — the groups they are pitched to — go far beyond the demographic represented. It’s all idealized selling. Not altogether different than what you see here.
Right… because 100% of the great American melting pot are white and look just like that family.
Koreans want lighter skin (nothing to do with BEING white)
Many Americans want darker skin (nothing to do with BEING black)
Interesting tactic Samdung is playing here.
By using the same actors Samdung is trying to align their brand with Apple’s.
A dangerous game indeed.
Surely Apple had a contract with these actors specifying that they cant appear in a competing company’s marketing?
Glad I dont use any Samdung hardware!
Really glad I didn’t buy that new Samdung tv either before xmas – got an LG instead, wise move.
Cant wait for this copycat to go down in the global recession :DD
It seems Samsung just loves throwing shit in Apple’s face because they know with the production contracts they have with Apple, Apple would never leave them. So they are enjoying flinging poo at Apple. Its immature and unprofessional but they do it because they can. Its like they don’t have a worry in the world what Apple would do because they are like ” Yoo-hoo! * waving the LCD contract in Apple’s face* its either I feck with you or I screw you which is it gonna be?”. And Apple refusing to look for other supplier is like they enjoy being bullied. It sickens me why can’t they just dump Samsung and use other suppliers? Its what I would have done so the table can be turned around.
SameSung indeed.
You guys are soooo screwed…
I bought a new 60″ LCD HDTV for Christmas. It’s not a Samsung and the one I bought I doubled check to make sure it’s not made by Samesung! Suck on that Samsung! 🙂
Samesung is sucking on the money you gave them for the CPU in your mobile Apple device 😉
“Samsung Steals Actress From iPhone…” Blah
Not Samsung but you are pathetic isheeps:)
This is obvious mocking to Apple. Because of the pathetic apple’s patent s…ts.
Samsung was expecting you to react this way for the “STEALING OF APPLE’S KID-ACTRESS” and waiting Apple to show the “patent” of the girl:)
And you like a fish swallow the bаit.
Yes, the girl on the picture made with “new” obsolete iphone , actually loves samsung tablet. This is the meaning. As the add about waiting crowd outside apple-shop, secretly in love with Samsung.
Grow up ! Isn’t it better Apple to give you at last some real new product
instead ? Or they now can only helplessly do “patent” clown-tricks?
The average, non-geek customer will probably think that kid is playing with an iPad… and they’ll probably either hit apple.com or look for an Apple retailer to go pick one up… The ad certainly does not create a unique branding image for Samsung, king of generic, lookalike products. I wonder if they’ve ever developed any original idea and brought it to the world, or even care. It’s all about the money, and probably a bit of self-loathing going on by the Korean crime bosses. But in the end, when an original style is imitated, it always comes across a bit forced and cheap. That is what the end result is for Samsung… a cheap, commodity manufacturing company with no soul or true identity. Who you gonna remember 50 years from now… Apple or Samsung?
I think the point that people like you miss is that it’s all about the money for all corporations. You can blabber all you want about how Apple products are “more premium” or “original”, and go so eerily far as to suggest the corporation has a “soul”, but in the end, it is another money grubbing corporation with profit as its primary goal. One thing that sets Apple apart though is how it likes to use marketing to create elitist and arrogant snobs to parrot their alleged ideals of things like “originality”, while glossing over the greedy and unethical practices of the corporation.