True to form, Samsung mocks iPhone 5 buyers in latest commercial
We caught Samsung preparing its latest salvo against Apple last week, and now the company's next big attack ad is finally here. Staying true to the theme of its earlier commercials, Samsung's new ad mocks those waiting early …
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung's attack-ad playbook is now a year old: it went after 'Apple fanboys' directly in a November 2011 commercial, ambushed the iPhone 4S launch in Sydney a month earlier, and denied staging the 'Wake Up' anti-Apple flashmob in April 2012. A September 15 AllThingsD piece framed the current campaign as Samsung trying to win on the merits — but days later the company is back to mockery.
The timing is pointed: this spot lands in iPhone 5 launch week, when Apple's online store has pushed new-order shipping estimates to 3-4 weeks on the strength of pre-orders. The pickup was broad — Computerworld, VentureBeat, BGR, Business Insider and others all ran the story the same day, which says more about how reliably these ads generate coverage than about anything new in them.
First-order effects
- Samsung gets a free media cycle during Apple's biggest launch week of the year, positioning the Galaxy S III as the phone for people who don't want to wait in line or wait 3-4 weeks for shipping.
- iPhone 5 buyers become the butt of the joke rather than the target product — a shift from comparing specs to ridiculing the rival's customer base.
Second-order effects
- Apple faces pressure to respond without breaking its own convention of never naming competitors in ads, leaving Samsung to define the comparison narrative unopposed on television.
- Carriers and retailers selling both phones benefit from the framing: every Samsung jab at iPhone buyers invites shoppers to treat the two devices as interchangeable rather than one as aspirational.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, attack advertising becomes a structural fixture of smartphone competition — the challenger's standard playbook for converting a market leader's brand halo into a liability, with each launch cycle now accompanied by counter-programming.
The trend: Smartphone marketing is shifting from feature comparison to identity-based attack advertising, with Samsung using Apple's own launch events as free stages for its counter-messaging.