Whilst Samsung may dominate the East when it comes to the smartphone war, the West still harbours a special fondness and reverence for Apple. No doubt a large part of that is down to its excellent marketing and always on-trend styling. Clearly sick of Apple’s refusal to roll over and surrender, Samsung is finally deciding to take them on at their own game.
Samsung is opening eight ‘Experience’ stores across the UK, in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Cardiff, Bournemouth, and two in Newcastle (for some reason). A look inside one of these Experience stores will reveal a fairly familiar sight – a vast open plan space, wooden tables and benches, enormous plasma screens embedded in the walls, and of course tons and tons of Samsung devices. Not just smartphones, but tablets, laptops and televisions as well. There’s even ‘Experience Consultants’, Samsung’s take on the Apple Genius Bar.
It’s a bold move from Samsung, and will undoubtedly draw the odd cynical sneer from Apple fans, or anyone else who perceives this move as a little forced, but there’s a strong argument to be made in favour of it. The fact of the matter is that Apple’s stranglehold on the UK consumer base is largely brand oriented – a vast amount of their customers are those who simply buy it without thinking. That’s not to say that the iPhone isn’t an outstanding piece of kit (it is), but when your rival has the advantage of blind loyalty, the only way to beat them is to try and sway some of those same people over. Samsung clearly hope that by opening up these stores they can give themselves the same, cool image that Apple has built up over the last ten years. Will it work when your brand is being exported from a foreign land with little cultural mutual ground, and your flagship phone is made of plastic? It seems that time will tell.
These stores will all be open for business in time for the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S5, available throughout the UK this Friday.
