As a Los Angeles marketing firm, we always have an eye on not only marketing trends, but what’s going on with patents and different court cases. Recently, Apple was hit hard when a British judge ruled that “Apple must run ads in the U.K. newspapers saying that Samsun Electronics didn’t copy designs for its iPad,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Apple is also required to post a ‘note’ on its website as well as magazines across the U.K. stating that Samsung did not copy the iPad. While Apple is working on its appeal, there might be some good news for Apple in this court decision based on some marketing research and interesting results.
Bad for Apple
Shall we start with the bad marketing news for Apple? According to PC Magazine, Apple is losing its mobile battle with Samsung at the moment. With the release of the Samsung Galaxy III, Apple has fallen by a few million mobile phones to Samsung. And while everyone in the tech industry is keeping a close eye on the release of the iPhone5, as well as this court lawsuit, Samsung is picking up all of Apple’s disgruntled customers who are looking for a more affordable ‘smart phone.’
Good for Apple
However, on a lighter note for Apple, their online search marketing numbers are about to increase dramatically. Yes, Apple was ordered to place ads online and in print stating that Samsung did not copy their iPad technology. But there is an interesting twist to take note of.
According to the Wall Street Journal and some recent Yahoo research on how consumers respond to online ads, while Apple ‘promotes’ Samsung, and while Samsung promotes itself, Apple might ultimately win the search numbers.
Yahoo research looked at consumer response to ads placed on Yahoo’s front page. These were split adds that consisted of two different advertisements that would alternate throughout the day. Ironically, in the research Yahoo looked at a specific Samsung add for the Galaxy Tab that ran as a split with the movie Transformers.
Of course, Samsung produced an additional 424 searches per day for the Galaxy tab. But at the same time, the Samsun ad raised interest in the Apple iPad. Apple saw an additional 857 searches for the iPad, twice as many as for the Galaxy Tab.
What does this mean? Well, even though Apple lost the suit and was ordered to ‘promote’ the Samsung Galaxy tablet in its online and print advertising, any interest in tablets always seem to come back to an increase in iPad searches. Apple has branded itself so incredibly well with regards to tablets that it is inherent in our minds to automatically look for iPads when talking about tablets. Remarkable, right?