Samsung Marketing Strategy
Ario Gautama Putra (Adv.: Drs.G.w.Havranek), Drs.G.w.Havranek
Samsung adalah perusahaan teknologi yang berkembang pesat. Penelitian ini menggunakan Samsung sebagai objek penelitian. Kemudian, penelitian ini menggunakan studi kasus yang diterbitkan oleh Harvard Business School Case. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kunci sukses Samsung yang berhasil menjadi 20 merek dagang paling bernilai dalam waktu yang singkat dan menganalisa langkah yang perlu diambil Samsung untuk menjawab masalah dalam studi kasus ini. Penelitian ini akan menganalisa internal perusahaan seperti analisa 4P, kebijakan marketing perusahaan, dananalisa SWOTI. Langkah yang dapatdiambil Samsung adalah mengambil langkah diferensiasi dengan Sony, segmentasi pasar yang lebih akurat, dan membangun persepsi yang positif di mata masyarakat.
Sony had been acknowledged as the worldÂ’s best electronics brand, on the other hand, Samsung was perceived as me-too brand with low quality products. Yet, in 1996, Samsungs chairman launched the new management initiativeÂ’to create a global brand. Samsung made a commitment to create innovative and high quality products.
In late 1990s, Sony had underachieved performance while Samsung rise from out of nowhere. Samsung became top 30 of the worldÂ’s most valuable brand, while Sony still struggling. Therefore, Eric Kim wanted to make Samsung as a premium brand.
Samsung had a competitive advantage on vertical integration where Samsung committed to manufacturing as a core competence. Samsung was also only focus on hardware products, while Sony and Apple expand their business unit to software market. Samsung also had a strong culture in developing product as called the sashimi theory. The company believed that they had to speed up the product development in order to catch up the market. Samsungs ability to develop multiple products at once became one of the success factors.
Samsung brand was at different stages of development in different country markets. For example, Samsung became a peoples favorite in Russia while in U.S. market Samsung was positioned as followers of the brand leader.
Samsung gained a high market share but Sony still has higher brand value. Samsung made a major investment on marketing effort to enhance customer awareness. Samsung made a sponsorship deal with Olympics, partnered with the matrix revolution movie, and digitAll campaign.
The primarily objective was to create Samsung to be a truly preferred brand. Samsung products were merely at growth stage with high market share and high market growth. The alternative solution was to differentiate Samsung with Sony, the biggest competitor and market leader. The recommended solution was to avoid one-size-fits-all approach. Samsung should divide customers into more segments and localized their brand. Next, the company had to optimize the product development while considering costumer trends. The second solution was to create an efficient budget by eliminating misallocation. Improving the marketing budget to enhance the branding effort was also suggested. The third solution was to build more positive customers perception towards Samsung brand in order to increase customers loyalty. Samsung had to create and advertisement, which lead customers perception that Samsung, is a life companion. Samsung also had to continue the previous effort such as digitAll campaign and sponsorship deals to increase brand awareness.
Kata Kunci : Samsung, Sony, Case Study, Marketing Strategy, Sashimi theory, Brand Awareness, Preferred Brand.
