Samsung: Our ‘next big thing’ ads drove Apple’s marketing chief Schiller ‘crazy,’ wanted to switch ad agencies

“Samsung’s ‘Next Big Thing’ advertising campaign, which frequently cracked fun at people standing in line outside of Apple stores for product launches, drove Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller crazy,” Josh Lowensohn reports for The Verge. “That’s according to Samsung, which is in the process of drawing out volumes of internal Apple documents as part of its lawsuit with the company that kicked off this week in a California court.”

“‘We will show you internal Apple documents, documents that haven’t been made public before, and showed how Apple was really concerned about competition from Android, and in particular Samsung,’ John Quinn of law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, which is representing Samsung in the trial, told an eight-person jury. ‘This new, edgy marketing strategy … it drove Apple crazy,'” Lowensohn reports. “Quinn says Schiller became ‘obsessed’ with the campaign, writing CEO Tim Cook to suggest the company look into using another ad agency instead of its mainstay TBWA\CHIAT\DAY. That even led to Apple board discussions over the issue, Quinn added.”

Read more in the full article here.

Related articles:
Samsung again mocks Apple customers in iPhone 5 queue via new Galaxy S III ad (with video) – September 19, 2012
Samsung runs print ad attacking Apple’s iPhone 5 in major U.S. newspapers – September 16, 2012
Nielsen: Samsung’s Super Bowl ad that mocked Apple iPhone users forgotten by most viewers – February 8, 2012
Samsung Super Bowl ad mocks Apple iPhone users – February 6, 2012

43 Comments

        1. DuckDuckGo is a jewel and the mobile app with articles is a gas. As a search engine it doesn’t approach the finesse of Google, though, when it comes to locating the more salacious details of celebrity scandals. Ah, well, what we must sacrifice in life. *sigh*

    1. Seems Scamsung has no defense. If you can’t counter the message (the patents), you attack the messenger (Apple) in totally irrelevant ways. What kind of legal strategy is it to blame Google. If you steal a car and lend it to a friend, he is guilty of possession and use of stolen property, whether he knew it was stolen.

    1. Samsung is saying, a fearful Apple fully overreacted in the market and Schiller’s anxious display will even the jury’s conviction that Apple is under tremendous pressure to hold it together, even in the face of mediocre competition.

      But that’s just my characterization of the folly.

      1. Seriously?

        I’ve been hearing the “next big thing” since the sixties drinking Tang, chewing Dentyne and watching Gemini missions on three alphabet TV channels.

        One more thing or something along those lines you may have a valid point.

        1. Seriously! I remember not being strong enough to change the channel on that big old television set. My father had a really bad leg and had trouble rising from his chair, so he asked me to do it for him. – I was clever, though! I saw that I could put a long screwdriver through the openings on the transverse bar on the big channel changer and use the leverage to chunk it over.

          I hadn’t needed to do that too often though, as most of the sporting events he favoured were on radio alone.

          ‘Next big thing’ seems a common catch phrase I have heard all along. Maybe Samsung is new and sly in applying it to a device with a ‘bigger’ screen?

        2. I thought “Samsung stole it fair and square” was SO sarcastic that I didn’t need to put a sarcastic tag on it. I guess I was wrong.

    1. Talking about ‘desperation’. Is this attempt at hammering on Jony Ives ALL you have to offer in the way of trolling, anonymous coward? Are you waiting for ScamScum to give you a raise before you bring out the big guns to blow us all away with shock and awe over weeny ripoff OS Android?

      pathetic

  1. The only thing infuriating about Samsung’s commercials were how bad they were.

    And Quinn Emanuel still has Samsung as a client after they got busted leaking terms of the Nokia deal? Wow – guess Samsung isn’t that upset about egregious breaches of contract – when they benefit them. Shocking.

  2. Go Samsung! This “evidence” you’re presenting just shows the jury that damages due Apple should be higher that you claim.

    BTW The Samsung ads that drive me crazy are the ones that show Samsung effortlessly doing things the iPad “can’t.” E.g. “My iPad can’t do two things at once!” Um … YES IT CAN, LIARS!

  3. …how Apple was really concerned about competition from Android, and in particular Samsung

    WHAT ‘competition’? And why are Samsung’s lawyers entirely OFF TRACK and blethering on about nothing related to defending their accused criminal activity?

    Oh I know why!

    DESPERATION! (>_<)

  4. “This new, edgy marketing strategy … it drove Apple crazy!”

    Sounds like their legal strategy is just as douchebaggy as their commercials. Nobody cares how edgy you think you are, Samsung. You’re being sued for patent violations.

  5. perhaps bringing out this ad thing has really nothing to do with Apple.

    looking at the last Samsung shareholder meeting, shareholders (and probably internally some Samsung family members in other divisions) were furious how much the Mobile group was spending (wasting) on ineffective ads. resulting in low profits.

    Phonearena Jan 2014
    “The company just announced its fourth quarter earnings report and for the first time in two years, profits were lower. Some of the blame for the decline is apparently being placed on Sammy’s high marketing costs.”

    samsung execs had to apologize for excessive ad spend:
    BGR Jan 2014:
    “we will try to raise the efficiency of our marketing spend and lower our overall mobile marketing budget to revenue this year compared with last year,” Samsung senior Vice President Kim Hyunjoon said”

    Perhaps bringing up ads in court was due to internal Samsung politics directed at shareholders and family members (samsung family members run different divisions and sue each other. Chiarman Lee himself for example has been sued for hundreds of millions by other family members for stealing money ).

  6. Let’s be honest Apple got complacent and became a lumbering swaglessly arrogant giant. Then Shamsung did to them what they had done to Microsoft. This is not the boy scouts. Man the f up and compete.

    Why the hell Apple let this happen I have no idea – – Not settling the clearly stacked iBooks case was pure idiocy. They had their Janet Reno moment I guess.

    They’ll probably turn it around this summer…but not before downing an iLoad of humble pie.

  7. I wonder if one did a man on the street interview with someone with a Samsung phone and was asked the question, “Your Samsung Galaxy has the “next big thing” in it. Can you name the innovation Samsung created when building that phone you’re using?” what the answer would be?

  8. We will show you internal Apple documents, documents that haven’t been made public before, and showed how Apple was really concerned about competition from Android, and in particular Samsung

    Well, yea, the only Android “partner” making any money. 😉

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.