Samsung - clever marketing or over-sensitive Apple fans?

[ChazUK]

This is inspired by This post in the Surge in Apple's iOS 7 Usage Revealed in Web Traffic Stats article.

Just an observationI made but it took no less than 5 minutes for someone to mention the hated company.

8:28 - Article posted.
8:33 - First Samsung mention.

In several moments Samsung paid trolls will be posting all over this site how this as yet unreleased OS and the new hardware that it will run on aren't innovative any more, or meant for your mother, or not cool...

8:43 - Second Samsung mention

Suddenly someone with a new account or an account from few years ago which never posted will come out and say how un-innovative and doomed and arrogant and closed and no-widgets Apple is, and how did he jump ship to the [brand] [full product name] and with the [full feature name], he is never going back to iOS. And the reason why s/he still cares so much to post flames in MacRumors is that despite his hate for Apple he ironically uses the newest MacBook Pro.

8:57 - Third Samsung mention.

Samsung is throwing so much **** at the wall in their phone with the hopes that something will stick except many features are half baked and rushed. Apple will probably include some of these features. They have been working on them as well but, instead of rushing to the market, they have been testing them and will come out fully functional. Unfortunately, since Samsung has thrown everything including the kitchen sink into their phones, people will declare Apple is copying the competition.

Have Samsung done something very clever by (inadvertently) getting their name mentioned in non-Samsung related stories by over sensitive Apple fans?

I find it very odd that they even got bought up in such a story. I wonder if some of these forum members realise that they could be creating marketing gold for Samsung without even realising it?

I can't ever remember seeing such behaviour on other forums so the question is, have Samsung played a very clever marketing game here by getting their name mentioned so often on such a staunch Apple site?

 

[Prototypical]

On that note, what if THIS topic is simply another Samsung plant?

 

[LorPGDL]

i dont think samsung is that reverse psychology in their marketing efforts, bearing in mind their usual style of bashing apple products.

the reason is that some of the posters are so into apple that they see samsung as a threat to themselves, not just apple.

 

[ChazUK]

On that note, what if THIS topic is simply another Samsung plant?

No, I assure you it isn't.

My father, Kwon Oh Hyun, would be ashamed if I turned out to be a Samsung shill...

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

I think if anything, there's probably several posters who are falsely claiming ownership of the S4 just to make negative posts about it.

 

[paulsalter]

Samsung are a big competitor to Apple, this is the new way to try and put people down, claim they are paid to make comments

 

[Krimsonmyst]

It's a bit of column A, bit of column B.

Samsung's marketing has obviously been impressive enough that these people think of them directly when they see information like this (even when the article made no mention of Samsung AT ALL).

On the flip side, Apple fans are obviously aware of what Samsung is pushing, and are either nervous about it, or at least recognise it enough where they feel they need to put it down in a public forum.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Over sensitive Apple fans on an Apple discussion forum no doubt but clever marketing I think not. Some just feel they need to pick sides and be loyal to one particular brand and the others amongst us really couldn't give a toss.

 

[Dr McKay]

I think those comments are from Apple fans, and while their comments are stupid and irrelevant, they are true. Hasn't anyone else noticed that a lot of the threads made praising the GS4 are from brand new accounts created about the same time the phone launched.

Why those people felt the need to bring that up in that article, I'll never know, it doors seem Samsung gets bitched at in every article.

 

[Dontazemebro]

I think those comments are from Apple fans, and while their comments are stupid and irrelevant, they are true. Hasn't anyone else noticed that a lot of the threads made praising the GS4 are from brand new accounts created about the same time the phone launched.

Why those people felt the need to bring that up in that article, I'll never know, it doors seem Samsung gets bitched at in every article.

Really? Because most of the times I see about the same amount of new account user threads where people claim to have played with a GS4 for less than a few hours and how horrible it is or how they switched back to iOS with plenty of troll worthy statements against Samsung. Seems like both sides are out in full effect.

 

[MRU]

have Samsung played a very clever marketing game here by getting their name mentioned so often on such a staunch Apple site?

You do remember last year when almost every front page article was Apple & Samsung suing each other. Are you telling me that suing apple was Samsung's way of getting mentioned on MacRumors or just merely a coincidence.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Really? Because most of the times I see about the same amount of new account user threads where people claim to have played with a GS4 for less than a few hours and how horrible it is or how they switched back to iOS with plenty of troll worthy statements against Samsung. Seems like both sides are out in full effect.

I think there are posters for both viewpoints. I don't believe half the posts where people claim to either hate the S4, or iPhone and claim to have owned both in such a short space of time. When I owned an Android phone we had people joining a couple of the Android forums claiming to have dumped their phones in favour of the iPhone and declaring everything was rubbish. Its a shame people feel they have to make stuff up like that just to stir, but that is life. It has got particularly bad here in recent months however.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Can't deny Samsung is killing with these type of commercials. The S4 is the only phone other than any iPhone that I had to wait for it to be shipped to store cause they are out of stock.

 

[Tinmania]

I think those comments are from Apple fans, and while their comments are stupid and irrelevant, they are true. Hasn't anyone else noticed that a lot of the threads made praising the GS4 are from brand new accounts created about the same time the phone launched.

What would be the point of doing that in this forum, where the S4 is already liked? Quite often, when googling something for my nexus 4 or note 2, I get results leading here. If I was not already a member I could see me joining after googling my way here.

This forum is also less intimidating than most of the popular android forums. My head hurts sometimes when trying to meander through the gazillion forums and sub-forums on xda. Then when I find a thread that might be helpful or interesting I have to read 284 pages through the thread to get to it. The one time I started a thread it was instantly moved because it wasn't quite in the right sub-forum.

So maybe, just maybe, some new S4/HTC1/whatever owners end up here because it seems like an OK place that isn't so intimidating.




Michael

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

What would be the point of doing that in this forum, where the S4 is already liked? Quite often, when googling something for my nexus 4 or note 2, I get results leading here. If I was not already a member I could see me joining after googling my way here.

This forum is also less intimidating than most of the popular android forums. My head hurts sometimes when trying to meander through the gazillion forums and sub-forums on xda. Then when I find a thread that might be helpful or interesting I have to read 284 pages through the thread to get to it. The one time I started a thread it was instantly moved because it wasn't quite in the right sub-forum.

So maybe, just maybe, some new S4/HTC1/whatever owners end up here because it seems like an OK place that isn't so intimidating.




Michael

I completely agree. Also, even though this sub forum has much less traffic compared to Apple related sub forums, it's still pretty active vs some entire forum sites that are not as active. I myself have done some searches on phones that were non iPhone related and sometimes Google would show a MBR forum link as one of the first page results.

Then you have the fact that many Android forums will not tolerate iPhone comparisons. And that's always something people like to debate.

 

[0dev]

I think it's a mix of the two. Samsung have been very clever by worming their way into Apple fans' heads like this.

 

[mattopotamus]

they are cleaver

 

[Borealis]

So maybe, just maybe, some new S4/HTC1/whatever owners end up here because it seems like an OK place that isn't so intimidating.


Michael

Also, in this subforum atleast, most regular posters appear to be level-headed, civilized, and multi-brand users. This allows a useful comparison of iphone XYZ vs Android XYZ, with the pros and cons of each platform discussed in detail.
It's a great resource for understanding the (often hidden) weaknesses of each of these platforms and making an informed decision.

As for the trolls and shills, just ignore them.

 

[ChazUK]

As for the trolls and shills, just ignore them.

A fantastic point.

This is another thing I don't entirely understand.

People keep chiming on about how easy to identify these alleged Samsung shills are with low post counts and nothing but praise for Samsung products but, instead of ignoring and or reporting/blocking them, they either interact with them or keep on bringing them up (which would show a paid shill that what they're doing is working).

Makes little sense!

 

[Tikatika]

I don't think it's necessary to "hate" something in order to "love" something else, but sadly, a lot of people feel that need for justification.

I really like my S4, but can't imagine life without my iPad 3 and iPad Mini. Would love to have an iMac but the PC is still chugging along.

The animosity between Apple and Google is longstanding and corporate fueled, which flows downhill to the users.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

agreed, samsung is doing everything possible to attract consumers because of which apple fans are becoming a bit nervous.

I don't think it's only Samsung though. Apple fans are nervous because they're not used to being number 2 or number 3. I've followed Apple for years (look at my post count! ) and I'm no rabid fanboy, but I prefer WP8 to Android, and the iPhone is somewhere in between.

 

[sentinelsx]

agreed, samsung is doing everything possible to attract consumers because of which apple fans are becoming a bit nervous.

That every company does though.

I wish samsung were also trying to attract the informed buyers who value much better functionality (a great cloud backup solution, an integrated messaging solution, which they could have implemented in their SMS app, a more streamlined UI which doesn't have too much green etc etc) than just attracting the regular joes who will go "oh the new iPhone can't do that magical hand waving thing, galaxy s4 here i come".

Before the iPhone, Apple was a software and hardware company. They didn't just build hardware only. And you can see the offerings from nokia, motorola, samsung, sony, htc, lg, sharp, zte, asus and more among them that failed to impress as well as the iPhone did. Because all these companies are not OS developers. If google or MS didn't lend a hand, they probably would be dead, all of them.

The only company that could have given a real iOS rival right at the start in 2007 was blackberry and sadly they failed at it because they were sleeping. The only other company that built both its mobile operating system and the hardware to use it on. Now it is too late but hopefully they will rise again, if they don't sleep again lol.

Come to think of it, as much as i hate touchwiz and the AMOLED screens it runs on, i actually get excited when i see samsung covertly working on tizen. Not because i hate android, i actually love jellybean, but because google made it open source and depends on OEMs to use it when it comes to mainstream devices. With tizen, atleast samsung could probably create a solid integration and may be start adding functionality instead of air gimmicks.

As much as i read all the forums around in the tech sphere, the first thing that really stands out to me is that people are tired of iPhone because of Apple's stubbornness (read: not ALL people, the ones who say they are) to change their OS paradigm (not a full blown change, just a slight improvement, bringing it closer to OS X may be?) and the device sizes. It is as if apple implemented that, everyone would drop the rest of the OEMs in a heartbeat and come running back.

And that says a LOT about the reality of these ancient OEMs. Basically how i personally feel is that they are back to their old tricks, adding useless stuff to sell to clueless public, bowing to carriers' wills (carrier bloatware on top of a skinned device is a huge travesty), things they did in pre-iPhone era too.

The only companies i can see breaking a mold here is samsung and perhaps blackberry if given a chance. Or google and moto in future if they finally wake up.

 

[rtomyj]

Wow and Apple fans are sheep >_>.

Samsungs tactic - http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/04/17/samsung-fake-web-reviews/

If you would read the comments you quoted you would realize that they are saying, "people who have a new account or a previously inactive account are bashing Apple". This coincides with Samsungs "marketing" and is actually true. There are a lot of new users talking **** about Apple. Just look at the members who post anti Apple on the front page posts. Of course there are people who get mad or paranoid for no reason on this forum, but that's the Internet.

 

[sentinelsx]

I don't think it's only Samsung though. Apple fans are nervous because they're not used to being number 2 or number 3. I've followed Apple for years (look at my post count! ) and I'm no rabid fanboy, but I prefer WP8 to Android, and the iPhone is somewhere in between.

I know someone here will talk the profit talk soon in response to this, but since when where they number one anyway? I see windows machines almost everywhere ever since i started using PCs. Yes there are macbooks around too but the ratio is much less. When i was in university our three primary labs were running redhat linux, not even windows or OS X.

Fanboys are just fanboys. You can never argue with them. And that goes with ANY fanboy, no matter the affiliation.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I know someone here will talk the profit talk soon in response to this, but since when where they number one anyway? I see windows machines almost everywhere ever since i started using PCs. Yes there are macbooks around too but the ratio is much less. When i was in university our three primary labs were running redhat linux, not even windows or OS X.

Fanboys are just fanboys. You can never argue with them. And that goes with ANY fanboy, no matter the affiliation.

I meant number 1 as in "the world's most advanced OS". OS X, especially around 2006, was miles ahead of Windows.