HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

As much as we sympathize with Samsung’s efforts, we can’t help but notice they’re having some misconceptions as to what it takes to reign the portable audio market. (Lest we forget, it was only last year when they publicly vowed they’ll grab the #1 spot from Apple in the MP3 players department by 2007.) Peter Weedfald, senior vice president of consumer electronics for Samsung’s North American division, said during an interview last week at the CES:

What’s the difference between how they have gone to market and how we have gone to market? It’s real simple. They spent $165 million last year to advertise Apple MP3 products. We spent $1 million [...] We are going to break the code. In 2006, we are going to over-invest in advertising and marketing around these really hot, new digital video and digital audio products, and we will spend tens of millions of dollars.

We’re merely going to state the obvious here, but it seems someone’s missing it over at Samsung HQ, so there. Advertising/marketing is big in Apple’s book but as with any product, it has zero value if the product sucks. The iPod isn’t the #1 MP3 player because Apple’s advertising it everywhere you turn your head to; it’s #1 because it’s one of the best players out there. There’s no use in over-investing in advertising and marketing if your products don’t cut it when compared to the competition. If that’s not the case, then by all means, rock on and go wild spending your advertising dollars. We’ll be more than happy to see Apple dethroned (not because we’re iPod bashers, but because offerings that eliminate the competition scare us).

Interesting side-fact: Samsung’s Helix and Nexus devices took about four and a half months to go from “idea!” to final product, according to Peter Weedfald, senior vice president of consumer electronics for Samsung’s North American division.