"The Next Big Thing"

“The next big thing is here”, Samsung’s commercial slogan that appears at the end of every TV commercial now. Samsung is a Korean company founded in 1938. Despite Samsung producing electronic products, apparel, chemicals, medical equipment, and even ships, it is best known for its smart phones. In their 2013 Super Bowl commercial, Samsung featured Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd from the movie Knocked Up to brainstorm ideas for Samsung’s “The Next Big Thing” commercial. The shorter version that was aired during the Super Bowl game was 2 minutes, but the extended version that can be found on YouTube was 4 minutes and 41 seconds. 

The short version

The extended version

It’s quite long for a commercial, especially during a Super Bowl game. I guess the company really had the confidence that the commercial deserved every second of it. Both Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd were brought together to be in the new commercial. The part they made fun of each other, not only it’s funny, they were also introducing functions of the new phone. Ironically, when Rudd sarcastially asked Rogen if he was meeting a person named Sam Sung, Apple did have an employee named Sam Sung. This was referring to Apple in a smarter way. Bob Odenkirk, who played the role of the client, disliked all the ideas Rogen and Rudd brainstormed for. Odenkirk’s well-dressed secretary handed him the tablet. Instead of the two famous comedians and actors, NBA star LeBron James impresses Bob by a tablet recorded short video. And this gets James to be in Samsung’s “The Next Big Thing” commercial instantly.

Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Bob Odenkirk are all comedians and actors. LeBron James, the NBA player from Miami Heat, didn’t appear in the commercial physically but in a tablet video. More than obvious, the commercial used persuasive techniques such as bandwagon, and famous-person testimonial. And I say it was very effectively managed. Despite the fact that it had a basketball star in a Super Bowl commercial, everyone knows LeBron James and people love to be entertained by comedians. By adding James in the ad, it broadened the range of people who would want to watch this ad, the target audience. If this commercial played in China, they probably should swap James with Jeremy Lin, or Yao Ming. Within the short break and among all these big companies, this ad was definitely the most memorable one from that night.

      What’s new about this Samsung commercial is that there was no music. The entire 4 minutes and 41 seconds were filled with conversations during a casting meeting. I mean, any commercial, at least have some sort of background music, especially when emotion attachments were involved.

It looked like Rogen and Rudd were throwing out ideas to compete, but the whole conversation just made fun of all other Super Bowl advertising: "Old people doing young people things; crowd source; space; zombies." It was a commercial of the casting scene of the commercial. The great humor not only caught attention, but also made other Super Bowl advertising looked like idiots.

       Those who like either one of the three or all of the three comedians would love it. Those who like LeBron James would love it. Again, that’s the famous-person testimonial technique. Those who were nervous during the game would love it because it was entertaining. This commercial was rated as “The Best Strategic Comedy To Make Other Advertisers Look Idiotic” by Rohit Bhargava, the founder of the Influential Marketing Group. However, there were people didn’t like it much. After Jerry Hildenbrand post a question asking how people think about the ad, many people commented thumbs down. From the comments, nickacs says: “Lame. Didn’t even advertise anything ‘BIG’ about it;” jtc276 says: “I wasn’t impressed. It really didn’t advertise anything other than the celebrities. But maybe ‘Galaxy’ is a big enough name to not really have to anymore;” and Synycalwon syas: “To be honest; I missed it during the game. But like all of the commercials, even seeing it now, so what? It's lame like all mass advertising! WTF happened to innovative stuff? In this hyper consumerist society; nothing. It's all anti-climatic!”
       Some liked last year's better. And many other blogger talked about the commercial:

http://bankofopinions.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/samsung-mobile-the-next-big-thing-ad-analysis-by-justin-shaw/

http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2013/02/best-and-worst-of-super-bowl-marketing-strategy-2013-edition.html

2012 Super Bowl Samsung commercial

Overall, people either loved it or hated it. Either way, it means the commercial was successful because it had attention. Would it be commented differently if people from outside of U.S. saw this? Rogen and Rudd were in the same movie, then they were competing to be in a Samsung ad. This might look silly to foreigners. Although to others, the U.S. government always advertised the unity of this country, the evaluation of individuals appeared to be more important and recognized. However, from my personal experience of studying in the U.S. I found it interesting that the evaluation level of individuals in the majorities is very different from the level in other areas such as the Hollywood. People who live in that circle turn to be more aggressive, less polite, and meaner, although they appear to be nice on TV. It also showed priority and classism when LeBron James succeeded impressing Odenkirk with his tablet recorded cameo and his fame.

        I’m not a big fan of Super Bowl, but would I watch Super Bowl commercials? Hell yeah. Apologize to Super Bowl lovers, but that’s the only fun part to me. “The Next Big Thing”…I want to be the next big thing!! God, this stucks in my head now.