TL;DR

  • Samsung's newest ad campaign is called "Simon Says," and it directly attacks Apple.
  • The ad's premise is that Apple phones have become stale while Samsung's are innovative and exciting.
  • Unfortunately, Samsung's phones have not substantially changed in years, making the ad pretty epic cringe.

    • Ah, the Samsung vs Apple rivalry. It's a tale as old as time. Over the years, Samsung has had no problem directly attacking Apple in its ads, with the "Ingenius" campaign from 2018 being a notable highlight. Now, Samsung is at it again, this time with a campaign called "Simon Says."

    The "Ingenius" campaign was great in 2018, primarily because Samsung was in a golden era, with phones like the Galaxy Note 9 being some of the best, most innovative products it's ever launched. In 2024, though, things are a bit different. Now, Samsung's stabs at Apple are getting old, especially considering that Samsung hasn't done anything substantially different with its phones in years.

    Samsung can't attack Apple for lack of innovation when Samsung phones haven't changed in years.

    In the video above, you can see a 30-second spot in this campaign for yourself. It starts with a person standing in line for the latest iPhone launch, opening up the box, and then asking, "What's new?" Someone in the back then says, "Who cares?" Because Apple fans are sheep, remember? Yuk yuk yuk. Of course, any Samsung fan opening the box for the latest Galaxy S24, Galaxy Z Flip 6, or pretty much any of its 2024 lineup would say the same thing.

    Next, we see a person walking away from the queue using Galaxy Buds 3 Pro — you know, the ones that look just like Apple's AirPods but with an RGB strip. Those ones.

    The video then continues, showing people using Galaxy phones to do things iPhones simply can't do, such as using the cover display of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 to translate someone's speech, using the S Pen that comes with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and editing a photo using Galaxy AI.

    The video then ends with the narrator saying, "Simon says a lot of things. Samsung says, 'Do your own thing.'" The final text then says, "Nobody should wait for innovation."

    The 'Nobody should wait for innovation' line is especially cringe. What significant innovation have we seen from Samsung recently?

    Honestly, the whole thing is cringe. The last smartphone company that should be pointing at Apple and saying it hasn't innovated and its phones all look the same is Samsung. Also, what's shown in the video aren't brand new ideas; they are all things any Samsung user has been able to do for years now, with the only exception being the Galaxy AI bit. But even then, using AI to edit a photo is not a Samsung exclusive — a Pixel can do the same thing, as can many other Android phones.

    Samsung needs a new bit. If it's going to attack Apple directly in ads, it needs to be for things it actually beats Cupertino on — which, to be fair, is quite a lot. The easy and obvious thing it could have attacked is Apple's incredibly slow rollout of Apple Intelligence. Maybe a "Why wait?" campaign would have worked better, or maybe a series of ads saying, "Now's the time." Seriously, these things write themselves!

    This "Simon Says" campaign, though, is just a case of the pot calling the kettle black. You need a new routine, Samsung.

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