Samsung put full page ads in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal apologizing for the Galaxy Note7 fiasco
In an effort to restore some consumer goodwill after the discontinuation of the Galaxy Note 7, Samsung ran full page apology ads in three major US daily newspapers today.
Context & Ripple Effects
The ads close a two-month arc that began with regulators ending investigations and Samsung offering US and Canadian replacements in September, then escalated through a $25 loyalty credit, an October order telling owners to stop using the phone entirely and asking carriers and retailers to halt sales, and finally full discontinuation after a rushed replacement program failed before the root cause of the fires was found.
What makes today's move notable is its geography: the apology runs only in three major US dailies, while Samsung's earlier initial claim that Chinese-market phones were safe left that market angered by an uneven recall. The company is now spending on reputation repair market by market rather than globally.
First-order effects
- US consumers, carriers, and retail partners — the same channel Samsung asked to stop selling and exchanging the Note7 two weeks ago — are the direct audience, as Samsung shifts from safety instructions to goodwill messaging.
- Note7 owners who followed the stop-use directive now get a formal corporate apology layered on top of the replacement and refund process already underway.
Second-order effects
- By apologizing in print rather than only online, Samsung is buying credibility with exactly the mainstream readership that decides whether the brand survives into the next flagship cycle — a costlier, slower channel chosen deliberately after the rushed replacement without a root cause destroyed trust in fast fixes.
- The US-only placement leaves the China grievance unaddressed, forcing Samsung to run a separate repair effort there or cede ground in one of its largest markets.
Third-order effects
- The full-page ad becomes a template Samsung reuses: eight years later it issues another rare public apology, this time over disappointing preliminary Q3 results, suggesting crisis contrition has hardened into standing corporate practice rather than a one-off response to a hardware failure.
The trend: Samsung is turning the public apology into a repeatable crisis-management instrument, deployed first for the Note7 recall and later for financial underperformance.