It seems that making your latest product look exactly like the market leader isn’t always the fastest route to success. As Samsung found when it aired its first commercial for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the device is so similar to the iPad that half of TV viewers thought it was an Apple product. Only 16% realized it was made by Samsung.

That’s according to the latest internal Samsung document to surface this week, which suggests the Korean company’s Galaxy Tab was so closely designed to the iPad, that it had a hard time differentiating it, and making consumers realize it wasn’t an Apple product.

The report, which was submitted as evidence in the Apple versus Samsung trial this week, reads:

Given Apple’s already strong position in the tablet category, it is critical that attribution of [Galaxy] Tab communications improve and that communication works to differentiate Tab from iPad.

The report also notes that only 11% of customers “are aware of and can link the Galaxy Tab back to Samsung, while 65% of consumers are aware and can link the iPad back to Apple.”

Samsung blames a “lack of awareness of the product” for these figures, and explains that “TV advertising has had minimal impact primarily because of misattribution.”

Maybe designing the Galaxy Tab to look like the iPad wasn’t such a good idea, then.

Source: AppleInsider