HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S4 Marketing Campaigns

 

As everyone might or might not know, the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 launched in April and will be available for purchase by cell phone carriers soon. That being said, they are competing with one another head to head. Both phones are highly anticipated by the general public, and both HTC and Samsung had been doing a lot of marketing for their upcoming phones. HTC is known to have great products, but poorly executed advertising for their phones. On the other hand, Samsung is known for dumping large amounts of money to market their phones thus creating hype among people for their products. HTC recognizes their weakness and is making drastic changes to promote the HTC One.

For the launch of the HTC One, they will not only be focusing on traditional marketing. They will also be doing new media and viral marketing, and from that they will be relying on people’s positive word-of-mouth to help promote the phone. HTC is taking on the concept that Apple has in marketing their products, which is to allow customers to have a hands on experience with their products before buying it. To do so, HTC had set up 11 temporary retail stores in the malls of the United States to allow customers to go and test the phone out. In addition to that, HTC has set up “HTC Live Experience Tours” in populated tourist locations with boom box looking stands to emphasize that the HTC One speakers are Beats by Dre audio. Furthermore, HTC One will be advertising the phone in sites and apps for tech savvy people who are constantly on their phones and on the internet. But is this enough to compete with Samsung’s marketing campaign? I myself tried to get my hands on a HTC One by preordering it with T-Mobile, but it is already sold out. Does this show that HTC’s marketing campaign was a success?

Meanwhile, Samsung has set the standards high with the launching of the Galaxy S4 last month (March 2013). They have built up much hype for the S4 and people were eagerly waiting for its launch because its predecessor the Galaxy S3 was so successful. When it came time for the unboxing of the Samsung Galaxy S4, they put on a theatrical show for the public that can be streamed live on YouTube. There were more than 423,000 viewers that were watching the event as Samsung showcased the long awaited phone at the New York’s Radio City Music Hall. However, after the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4, people thought that the phone did not live up to the hype. People thought there wasn’t a major product differentiation between the S3 and S4. That being said, do you think that consumers make their purchasing decision based on how the companies have promoted their product?

Sources:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/la-fi-tn-samsung-galaxy-s4-debuts-20130314,0,7829765.story

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/la-fi-tn-htc-viral-marketing-samsung-20130404,0,1529131.story

9 thoughts on “HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S4 Marketing Campaigns

  1. It seems that all companies put such a huge emphasis on the unveiling of new phones. I never really see such a huge change from them. I guess it’s a give and take. S3 was such a huge success but it is kind of hard to over top it in such a short time. The S3 didn’t come out that long ago to begin with. For being “run out” of products, it seems that companies do that so that consumers can think it was such a huge success that everyone is ordering it. It may be just the companies plan to convince consumers to buy and think it is “limited”

  2. I found your article very interesting and relatable to issues that I am facing myself as I am in the market for a new phone. As powerful as word of mouth is, for companies that need to target mass audiences with a new product, it is not a very effective tool. The majority of consumers know how well the S3 performed and believed that the S4 will be just as revolutionary as the previous version. The same situation happened with the transition from the Apple iPhone 4s to the iPhone 5. While these new phones are better, they are not up to the level of hype that was expected. To answer your question, I believe that how well a company markets its products and the reputation they build will result in high sales. Consumers will be more inclined to purchase products that are heavily marketed because they see them more often. Products that do not receive any marketing generally do not generate extremely high sales because consumers are not aware of them.

  3. I agree with you and the other comments. As a consumer myself, I began to do research. The Samsung Galaxy S3 was one of the most powerful and innovative smartphones on the market and was found to be the world’s bestselling smartphone in 2012. The company even beat its toughest competitor:the Apple iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. Samsung continues to be the biggest mobile and smartphone manufacturer today because of the quality of its products and marketing strategies. There is no doubt that both the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One are awesome mobile devices, but majority of the consumers will do some form of research before making their purchase. Even though Samsung has proven to be a leader in the smartphone market and built its brand name with a more effective marketing campaign than HTC, which one consumers choose will come down to factors like the phone’s physical design, price, expandable storage preferences, and other features. To answer your question, I believe that a solid marketing campaign, good word-of-mouth and brand name all contribute to its success in sales. Another important thing to point out is that you mentioned, “HTC had set up 11 temporary retail stores in the malls of the United States to allow customers to go and test the phone out,” and this to me puts more emphasis on the aspect of operation management instead of marketing. Good post!

  4. I think the marketing strategy of companies has a huge role on consumers buying decisions, and word of mouth happens after that. I have actually just purchased the HTC One, and it is in the mail. I have never pre-ordered a phone, or been more excited about one. Most of my excitement has come from my own research. I was introduced to the phone while visiting the Sprint website, so I decided to do more research, now I have found so many things out that I have persuaded two others to purchase the phone, also.

    This is a great article.

  5. I got the S3 last year in June when it first came out. It’s crazy to think an S4 is already out, and no amount of promotion will get me to buy an S4. It’s simply too soon. Samsung beat Apple and now they’re getting greedy. I believe these releases need to be spaced further apart for as long as phone contracts are still a thing in the industry. If they provide some breathing room in-between releases they also have more opportunities to build bigger hype. Nonetheless the S3 was my first smartphone and I’m very happy with it, which is the primary reason why I may consider future Samsung products.

  6. First off, the marketing efforts of HTC listed in the main post are very extensive; some are fairly clever as well. The boom box display emphasizing the speakers would stand out, I imagine, as one of those events that make people stop and wonder what in the world is going on. I’m surprised that it was already sold out when you attempted ordering it, because though it may be a strategy as acortez pointed out, that may not be the wisest strategy for an industry as competitive as smart phones right now. A huge part of the reason the phones are selling rapid fire is because people want the next best thing as soon as it is available. If they can’t get it from the company, chances are they are going to look elsewhere, possibly choosing the competition. Also, I had no idea that Samsung beat out iPhone sales as cyoo said; I always just think of Apple as knocking everyone else out of the race. It does make sense though, considering how much advertising for the Galaxy I have seen.

  7. Good post. I do believe that consumers make their decision by the marketing that is done, but they don’t rely solely on that. I think it helps when they flood everybody’s airwaves with the product, but most decisions are made by actually going to the store and trying the product. When the S3 came out, I gave it a chance because it was “the next big thing,” but being a previous iPhone user I was skeptical. It only took me a day to realize that I wasn’t android fanatic and switched back to the iPhone. I must admit at first I was hooked simply from the awesome commercials they were making and the hype that followed, but when it came down to the actual product, it was just another phone and the only big part about it was the screen. Back to your question now, the hype can be a good thing because it does put it into consumers mind that there is a possibility that it could be a great product, but the product has to actually live up to the hype. When I saw the new S4 commercials, I basically didn’t pay attention because the previous phones’ hype led to a sub par product in my opinion.

  8. Good post.
    I think that consumers make their purchasing decision based on how the companies have promoted their product. First, if customer is not one of phone brands fans, they would not know if phone brands have new products come out. Also, the advertising is the great promotion to describe new function of new phone, and this can attract customers to buy.

  9. I thought this article was interesting. It seems to be that the large brands such as Apple, Samsung, and HTC are all coming out with new phones at least once or twice a year. I have seen a lot of the HTC commercials recently and it looks like the company is doing a good job of creating brand awareness to those that have not really heard about the brand. In the past, HTC has been sluggish behind Apple and Samsung. Hopefully through their advertising more people will purchase their phone. I do believe that people purchase their phones through how companies advertise because I think most of the phones are all similar when it comes down to the specs and it all depends on how they can promote. Apple and Samsung does a great job of marketing and I think that is why they have been so successful. It will be interesting to see how HTC will handle all the orders and if there will be a outage of products. Hopefully they have been preparing and already have a lot of the product in stock.

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