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1. The Top 3 Reasons Why Youth Buy Samsung
(and why these are not enough to beat Apple)
It’s a question I think about a lot because handset brands keep asking me.
My answer to Samsung lies in measuring the emotional attachment between
youth and the Samsung brand. Do youth like or love Samsung? (answer in
Mobile Youth Report). Take a look at these insights from young people talking
about Samsung and Apple:
“Why did you buy Samsung not Apple?”
“It’s lighter, slimmer and has a better camera”
“Why did you buy Apple not Samsung?”
“I don’t know, I just like it”
If it was traditional focus group or survey research the last answer would be
dismissed but my experience tells me it is the most revealing. That’s why in
my newsletter and report, I focus on brand reality as told by the youth market,
not brand makeovers pushed by creative agencies.
Find the most relevant insights on youth mobile marketing: http://www.mobileYouth.org

2. What do youth think of Samsung?
I’m presenting at Samsung in Europe this week and one of the questions
posed by the research team beforehand was “what do youth think of
Samsung?”
To answer this, we need to understand difference between emotion and logic
in smartphone sales. You see, youth don’t buy Samsung because they think
it’s the better phone, they buy Samsung if they feel it’s the better phone. Note
the difference. What youth think and what youth feel about Samsung could be
2 very different questions.
Research from the Mobile Youth Report highlights 3 characteristics of how
the Samsung brand is perceived by youth:
1) Youth say Samsung is reliable and affordable
2) Youth say Samsung has better features than other brands
3) Youth would buy Samsung for themselves but not recommend the brand to
friends
(source: Youth and Handset Brands Report)
Brand perceptions: logic vs emotion
Our data highlights an interesting divergence in youth brand perception that
most traditional brand research or ad agencies fail to pinpoint: the logical and
emotional appeal of Samsung are very different. The 3 reasons why youth
buy Samsung are not enough to sustain long term engagement.
Brand dissonance is easy to hide. Nokia was once here. Here was a brand
viewed as reliable and affordable, it was the mass market brand liked by
many but loved by few. We even found examples of grandmothers buying
Nokia handsets for their grandchildren (because it was seen as “safe” and
Find the most relevant insights on youth mobile marketing: http://www.mobileYouth.org

3. “reliable”) but the kids taking out the SIM cards to use in other brand phones.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Samsung’s strength in market share and brand visibility can also be its
biggest weakness. Market share does not translate to profitability long term
(62% of the market produces less than 7% of its profit). By comparison,
Apple’s iPhone has less than 20% of the market share but produces 70% of
industry profits (source: How can mobile handset brands win hearts and
minds of customers?).
What matters is connecting at the emotional level. Campaigns may create
interest but youth market attention isn’t sustainable long term. Samsung
generated less consumer buzz compared to Apple during its Next Big Thing
Campaign despite several ad campaigns including a Super Bowl Ad (source:
How can Samsung beat Apple?). If Samsung aspires to be the “Life
Companion” touted by the CEO, it needs to look at the social context of
smartphone usage (a subject we’ve studied in depth) and identify the social
benefits not features of appeal.
If Samsung is to compete with Apple at the level of emotion and wean itself of
its resource hungry high visibility marketing, it needs to connect at the
emotional level of appeal. Competing with Apple doesn’t mean “slimmer”,
“more affordable” or “better camera” but those less measurable answers like
“I just liked it.” When we start to see these results come up in our research,
we know that Samsung has arrived.
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Find the most relevant insights on youth mobile marketing: http://www.mobileYouth.org