Marketing Strategy and SWOT Analysis of Samsung

In today’s rapidly developing world, Samsung is one of the multinational companies that succeed in perceiving changes, reacting to them and offering corresponding solutions. Founded in 1938, today it’s one of the most valuable brands of the world offering a huge variety of electronic products. As you guess from the title, our main topics are the marketing strategy of Samsung which will help us enhance our imagination about the driving forces behind Samsung’s extraordinary performances in the market, and then, it will be followed by SWOT analysis.

 So, as an appetizer, I would like to speak about Samsung’s brand mission and vision statements to understand the firm’s philosophy.  

 Samsung’s Mission Statement.

Samsung’s mission statement is “We will devote our human resources and technology to create superior products and services, thereby contributing to a better global society.” This statement tries to emphasize the amount of effort that is put into a single product of Samsung, which aims to improve the society’s well being. 

 Samsung’s Vision Statement.

Samsung’s vision statement is “to inspire the world with our innovative technologies, products, and design that enrich people’s lives and contribute to social prosperity by creating a new future.” Here, the key phrases are “inspire the world” and “create a new future”. The new innovative approaches that meet the needs of consumers in the best ways are the most highlighted inspirations. This also gradually results in the creation of a new future. 

 After going through Samsung’s mission and vision statements, our next stop is finding out the methods that Samsung uses to reach its customers.

To understand their positioning as a brand, I’m going to discuss one of their commercials.

As you notice, the ad displays a kid in a middle school who impatiently waits for the lesson to end so he can travel back to his world and as it’s written in the description section, one way to shoot your shot in your Galaxy, is going live with Galaxy A50.

The kid walks through the hallway of the school, while recording himself, and not paying attention to anyone else in the area.

Here, the commercial highlights the friendship that the phone offers to the kid. Maybe the kid has recently moved to school and doesn’t have many friends there, but instead he finds himself a friend in his new Galaxy A50 phone, which is ready to offer its friendship over and over again at any time of the day. This kind of property is typical to the Regular Guy brand archetype. 

So what does the Regular Guy Brand archetype represent?

Desire:  To be connected with others

Goal: To belong to a society and fit in successfully 

Strategy:  Creating solid virtues that would make common sense and would blend in easily.

Other famous brands that use Regular Guy Brand archetype as their brand identity are MasterCard, Budweiser, Dove and Chevrolet. Each of these brands is positioned as a good friend of a customer. They are not the highest-priced products in their respective markets, thus mostly their products are priced from moderate to low.

What are the messaging levels of the Regular guy archetype?

Level 1: Estrangement from society and loneliness

Level 2: Feeling of being forgotten or abandoned which results in a search for affiliation

Level 3: Being desperate to join and learn to be connected, as well as fitting in by offering help and accepting the friendship.  

Level 4: Being a humanitarian by promoting human welfare and believing in one’s dignified morales regardless of his or her conditions and abilities. 

The Everyman (Regular guy) brand archetype is a promising identity for your brand if:

• your product seeks a way to differentiate itself positively from the higher-priced or positioned as elite brands.
• the functions of your product are designed for everyday use
• the usage of the product helps people to be involved and feel belonged

Brand Archetypes. Why we need them in practice?

Our communication strategy may have multiple messaging approaches. But there is some logic that unifies all these and it is called communication based on the archetypal branding. A company may have many messaging strategies, but they do not have something in common. For example “Do everything easily”, “Go ahead and be powerful” or Dig deeper and be experienced”.

These 3 quotes have different goals and bring different subconscious effects. One is about Being a Hero, another is about gaining more experience. These are 2 different directions of messaging and the logics of Brand archetypes bring more uniqueness and clearness here. Just read the book “8 steps to a complete archetypal branding” and you will have more experience in communication based on archetypes.

Now it’s time to discuss the SWOT analysis of Samsung to have more awareness about the factors that impact or might impact their decisions. 

Strength: 

Strong Brand Image: Samsung has a powerful brand image. It offers quality products and has a fair pricing strategy, which increases the trust of the brand. Every year they win awards for their quality offerings, innovations and creative designs.

Global Brand: Surely, Samsung is one of the most recognized brands in the world. The brand is popular in all of the world’s largest markets such as the Americas, Europe and Asia. 

Strong R&D department: It’s not a secret that Samsung has a powerful research and development department. As of 2020 the R&D network of Samsung consists of 14 R&D Centers in 12 Countries, 7 AI-dedicated Centers in Korea, U.S, Canada, U.K, and Russia.

The investments in these departments have resulted in acquiring a variety of successful products and a wider range of product portfolios compared to its competitors. In 2019, Samsung has spent 16.4 billion dollars on R & D. 

Huge product diversification: As mentioned in the previous point, Samsung has a wide range of products. This includes mobile phones, memory cards, PCs, TVs cameras, tablets, etc. Their pricing strategy covers almost all the income levels.

Moreover, product diversification results in instability on profits of Samsung, as if the sales of one of its products decreases, it doesn’t have a huge impact on their level of revenue. 

The volume of smartphone sales: As of 2019 Samsung is the leader in the mobile phone market. The company has sold 296million devices, which is followed by Huawei’s 240 million and Apple’s 193million. Samsung accounted for 19% market share, Huawei 16% and Apple 13%.

Weakness:

Absence of own OS:  Unlike Apple, Samsung doesn’t have its OS and software, thus it’s heavily dependent on Android which is operated by Google. The absence of its OS and software decreases the company’s revenues from the mobile market and lacks the possibility of more innovative and authorized approaches towards the operations of OS and software. 

Damaged brand image. Even though it has a strong brand image, the reputation of the company has been damaged because of Samsung Galaxy S7 evidence back to 2016, when more than 100 devices overheating happened, as some of them resulted in injuring the owners.

Moreover, in 2019 Samsung has recalled 6600 top loader washing machines manufactured between 2010 and 2013 as one of the recalled models caught fire.

Opportunities:

The market for Home Entertainment Devices: In 2018, the market size for global home entertainment devices was valued at USD 225.0 billion. It is anticipated that the market will register a CAGR of 6.3% from 2019 to 2025. Samsung has one of the best products in the industry and by maintaining its position in the market, it can register even higher profits for the next 5 years. 

Air conditioner market: In 2019 Samsung has launched its new line-up of Air Conditioners with Triple Inverter Technology. These new ACs offer faster cooling and less electricity consumption. Moreover, they have added ‘Convertible Mode’ which allows the consumer to adjust the cooling according to the number of people in the room.

By applying these improvements and creative features in the new models, Samsung may have a chance to increase its market share.

Threats: 

Strong competition in the mobile phone market: The competition in the mobile market is getting more fierce each year. Competitors like Apple, Huawei Xiaomi are in a pursuit for a bigger market share and the best technology company, which is a big threat for Samsung. 

Further Damage in Brand Image: The previous incidents connected with the malfunctioning of Samsung products had their negative impact on brand image and if such cases occur again, the damage on a brand image would be even bigger.

The emergence of Chinese competitors:  The low production costs in China and the recent progress of Xiaomi, Oppo and Huawei could be a potential threat for Samsung as these brands may be able to offer same quality products at lower prices which will lessen Samsung’s share in the market. 

After getting details about the SWOT analysis of Samsung, I would like to speak about their target markets.

To explain one of Samsung’s target markets I’m going to discuss one of their commercials called “Growing Up”.

The commercial is a story about a boy who uses iPhone since 2007 and 10 years later after being jealous of his girlfriend’s Samsung, he decides to switch from iPhone to Samsung and as it’s mentioned in the commercial “Upgrade to Galaxy”.

The story highlights some major advantages that Samsung has over the iPhone, which are the water resistance and the comfortability when it comes to charging the phone and using it with earphones.

The whole commercial is guided by the love story of the characters where they share joyful moments, push each other to the lake, chill at night, etc. The end scenes of the commercial display the pleasure the guy gets while using his Samsung Galaxy phone, which was followed by his complacent passing in front of the iPhone store. 

So, what does the boy’s behavior tell us about his personality?

The boy in the commercial belongs to the Hedonist segment by the Garrison group,

Who are Hedonists?

Lifestyle and Values:

“We only live once!” This is the slogan of hedonists. I guess you already get what kind of lifestyle they have. By teaming up with friends usually with a big number of people they try to spend each of their days as fun as possible. Their mindset is full of craziness and usually they would not think twice about bungee jumping or getting to the stage during an event or a concert.

What refers to their careers, mainly they are challenge change and variety seekers, as they might change school or job so often. This also refers to their relationships, as they mostly prefer to have short term ones.

Moreover, in work, they try to keep things under control. What motivates them the most at work is the money… Other than that, they also like going to new places, discovering new fun places like dance halls and while doing so, meeting new people.

One of the things that worries them is their appearance as they like to stand out in the crowd and make sure that their look suggests well-being. What refers to their attitude towards family, it’s at the bottom of their priority list as only spending Sunday lunch or weekday breakfast with them may be enough. 

Shopping preferences:

Most of them use mainstream brands as they think that brand labels influence the image of a person. As purchasers they are impulsive and usually, they don’t organize their shopping. Typically, they tend to shop in smaller stores and they like buying authentic goods whenever they can. Domestic brands may attract them, but only if they are in fashion.

Here are some interesting facts about hedonists

• They like going to large dance clubs and mixing up with people, which is followed by partying till the morning and meeting up with girls. They prefer crowded places, as they think that if a place is not full of people, then it’s not worth going there. They mostly visit pubs, cafes, and bars just to “warm-up” before the big event. 
• They play the lottery and try to get a big pay off. However, they may play it secretly as they wouldn’t want others to think that they are not happy with their situation. Also, they like to play gambling machines or video games with their friends just for a challenge.  
• As media consumers they are not very active. Most of their usage is about fun and entertainment. As average readers of magazines, their main fields of interest include sports, cars, men’s titles, etc.
• The Internet is considered an advantage by them. The main purpose of their usage is to make life more interesting and colorful by chatting with friends, visiting dating sites or looking for parties or big events for the weekend. And of course, they also like shopping on the internet. 

16 Personalities (what is for your business?)

You can find complete information about HEDONISTS in the eBook version of the “16 Personalities” creative workbook developed by The Social Grabber team. You may also have questions about how to attract Hedonists. What are the insights of their consumer behavior? To focus on them in our advertising campaigns or promotions. Let me tell you that there are detailed revelations in the book “16 Personalities”.

So, I hope you found the information you were looking for in this blog post and the strategies of Samsung are now clearer to you. Thank you for reading the post. For more similar stuff, you can check out the main page of our website.