Samsung to re-brand itself at CES 2013

It is no secret that the Samsung logo along with its brand appearance isn’t the best fit to convey the South Korean conglomerate’s many business. Samsung makes refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, smartphones, tablets, networked TV sets, computers and many more items. It’s also a big player in construction, weapons tech, life insurance, advertising and theme park industries, to name a few.

The word on the street is that the company will launch a new brand image at CES 2013 and has enlisted the talent of Scott Bedbury, a freelance brand consultant who has also worked with Starbucks and is now reportedly tasked with creating a “more vibrant International brand image alongside the likes of arch rival Apple”

ChannelNews first reported that Samsung is “tipped to launch a new brand identity at the 2013 CES”.

The current blue Samsung logo will disappear, with all new product marketing linked via their own individual colours that are part of an overall brand family.

Additionally, sources claim that “even the advertising will change with products linked to lifestyle activities similar to what Nike does”.

Interestingly, yesterday’s story has been updated to remove all references of Samsung’s massive brand remake, but the original post is still available via Google cache.

This development is also interesting in light of the fierce rivalry between Apple and Samsung. The California-based iPhone maker surrendered some market share to the Android platform, which just turned five yesterday.

Google’s platform owes much of its recent strides to healthy sales of Samsung-made tablets and smartphones. In fact, I think it’s fairly safe to say that Android wouldn’t be growing as fast as it has been if it weren’t for the success of Samsung’s mobile devices.

The South Korean company also took aim at Apple with recent ads. The move drew ire of Apple fans, even if the jokes were wearing thing.

Apple, on the other hand, since Steve Jobs’s passing made a few advertising missteps, like airing a bunch of cheesy Siri commercials that were painted as inaccurate. The company also briefly promoted Apple Stores with ads that some people felt were childish and ridiculed its customers. Feeling the heat, Apple pulled the Genius ads.

Here is a nice collection of Apple ads over the years featuring celebrities, courtesy of Business Insider.

Samsung right now is spending big bucks promoting its Galaxy S IIi flagship like there’s no tomorrow. Apple is also a big spender in the advertising business. The Apple v. Samsung monster trial revealed Apple spent $149.5 million in the 2010 fiscal year and $307.7 million in the 2011 fiscal year on iPad advertising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WABOZ-C2A0

On iPhone advertising, the company burned a cool $149.6 million in the 2009 fiscal year and $173.3 million in the 2010 fiscal year.

Brand identity and advertising are paramount in the age of shortened attention span and so many products vying for our attention. While people don’t just simply buy only the products seen in ads, every time a a company airs a commercial its brand communicates with the general public.

The Samsung logo and brand certainly needs some modernizing. The Apple brand, though tarnished a bit lately, is consistently one of the most-valued brands in the world.

It’ll certainly be interesting seeing whether design guru Jonathan Ive, who is now in charge of the user experience on both hardware and software levels across the company, lends its magic touch to the legendary Apple logo, which itself has seen more than a few tweaks since Apple’s inception 35 years ago.

What do you think?

Should Apple be worried about Samsung’s re-positioning with an alleged new brand identity?