Samsung Changed Their Brand Marketing Strategy After the Galaxy Note 7 Debacle

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The Galaxy Note 7 battery issue that Samsung faced last year was something that impacted just about every aspect of their mobile division. Many hoped that it was going to be fixed very quickly but sadly it didn’t work out that way. The company is actually going to attempt to re-release the device this year in what I can only assume is an attempt at getting rid of pre-built and unsold hardware components that they had laying around.

This issue caused Samsung to evaluate a number of their hardware manufacturing facilities in an attempt to prevent this from ever happening again. The Galaxy S8 is doing well and is definitely not plagued by the same battery issue, so it’s safe to say they have done a good job at making sure that hardware issue didn’t happen again. Hardware departments aren’t the only part of the company that had to change, though, and Samsung’s United States CMO talks about their change in marketing strategy.

Marc Mathieu spoke at Cannes Lions Festival this month, and says he would not wish what they had to go through on any marketer. So Samsung’s marketing team immediately started putting together groups of consumers who wanted to give their input on the Samsung brand. Because remember, it wasn’t just the Galaxy Note 7 that was catching fire last year. The company also had to deal with their top loading washing machines catching fire and exploding.

Instead, Samsung needed to shift their marketing focus to what Mr. Mathieu says was an attempt to humanize the brand. The whole goal was to focus on brand trust (which we saw from many publicly released statements from the company) and then try and rebuild an emotional relationship with their customers. It’s certainly not finished by any means, but the sales reports of the Galaxy S8 are a sure sign that people are not worried about an exploding battery anymore.