Samsung Marketing Strategy: a brief overview

Samsung’s has the largest marketing budget in the competition and this fact partially explains the leadership position of the business in terms of market share. Samsung spent a total of USD10.2 billion (11.5 trillion won) on marketing in 2016 alone. This included USD3.9 billion (4.4 trillion won) toward advertisements, a 15% increase from 2015[1]. Samsung marketing strategy integrates various forms of advertising, events and experiences, public relations, direct marketing and personal selling as discussed further below in more details. The multinational electronics company has 53 global sales bases worldwide.

Samsung marketing strategy is based on the following principles:

• Samsung 7ps of marketing places greater emphasis on product element of the marketing mix, compared to other elements such as process, people and physical evidence. Specifically, with 34 R&D centres worldwide and 53 global production bases, the multinational electronics company attempts to ensure the continuous pipeline of new products with innovative features and capabilities.

• Samsung segmentation targeting and positioning strategy integrates multi-segment, imitative and anticipatory positioning techniques.

• Samsung marketing communications strategy, as it is illustrated in figure below, comprises two steps and each step involves a set of separate activities. It has to be noted that legal review as an important element of marketing communication process is present in both steps – production and execution. This is because neglecting legal implications associated with the development and delivery of marketing communication messages can cause considerable damage to the brand image with severe financial implications.

Samsung Electronics marketing communication process[2

Samsung Group Report contains a full analysis of Samsung marketing strategy. The report illustrates the application of the major analytical strategic frameworks in business studies such as SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Value Chain analysis and McKinsey 7S Model on Samsung. Moreover, the report contains analyses of Samsung leadership, organizational structure and organizational culture. The report also comprises discussions of Samsung business strategy and addresses issues of corporate social responsibility.

[1] Samsung’s, LG’s marketing costs rise in 2016 amid heightened competition (2017) Yonhap News Agency, Available at: http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/04/05/0200000000AEN20170405001800320.html?input=rss

[2] Sustainability Report (2015) Samsung Electronics