Surprising no one ever, the face of the technology industry was revealed to be utterly hideous just yesterday, when a report from AppleInsider showed that Samsung saw the death of iconic former Apple CEO Steve Jobs as a business opportunity.
While formulating a strategy for the marketing of the then-new Samsung Galaxy S II, Michael Pennington, then-Samsung’s vice president of sales operations and head of national sales for Samsung Telecommunications America (STA), suggested that Samsung devise a marketing campaign that aimed to “use Google to attack Apple… to avoid attacking Apple due to their status as a large customer.”
[NB: There are going to be a lot of names with ‘then’ as a prefix. Nothing we can do about that – it’s what happens when you’re reporting on something in the past within a fast-moving industry. In other words, it is what it is.]
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Shortly after, Steve Jobs passed away.
In a remarkable exercise of poor taste, Dale Sohn, then-president and chief executive of STA, commented, “We need to take advantage of this chance.”
Michael Pennington then replied, adding insult to injury by using incorrect grammar for Jobs’ name:
Unfortunately, Steve Job’s [sic] passing has led to a huge wave of press coverage of Apple’s and iPhone’s ‘superiority,’ all created by the, ‘passionate, tireless, perfectionist…’ The point here is the [sic] there is an unintended benefit for Apple, since the external messages by 3rd parties are all highlighting and/or supporting the consumer perception that Apple products are superior, since Jobs’ was such a visionary and perfectionist. What consumer wouldn’t feel great about purchasing a device developed by such a person.
Sorry to continue to push this issue, but I have seen this far too long and I know this is our best opportunity to attack iPhone.
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The documents that display this correspondence were introduced as part of the ongoing, seemingly unending and probably eternal patent trial between the technology giants.
Either way, fearing overshadow-ment (?), the death of Jobs did indirectly influence the marketing approach of Samsung, leading the latter to release a number of deeply unsubtle adverts that blatantly focused on attacking Apple’s cultural image.
If you ever wondered where such vicious playground tactics came from, now you know.
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