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Samsung scores highest for tablet marketing: study

Samsung?s aggressive television marketing for its tablets appears to be paying off with the company?s ranking as the No. 1 tablet advertiser, according to a new study from Ace Metrix.

Ace Metrix?s recent report, ?Most Effective Tablet Ads of 2012? looked primarily at how the leading manufacturers, including Samsung, Apple, Amazon and Google, have used TV to boost awareness of their tablet products. Interestingly, Apple did not make the cut of the top ten campaigns, even though the company?s iPad captures the largest market share of tablets.

?The main finding is how successfully Samsung is competing against market leader Apple in creating advertising that is resonating with consumers ? and, by comparison, how the Apple ads are falling short of competitors', which also include Google and Kindle,? said Jonathan Symonds, executive vice president of marketing at Ace Metrix, Mountain View, CA.

Tablet marketing
Ace Metrix rated the TV ads on consumers? reactions. Criteria included attention, persuasion, relevance, information and watchability. A score from one to 950 was then assigned to each ad.

The list of top tablet ad campaigns includes findings through Sept. 17.

Six Samsung campaigns ranked in the list of top ten tablet campaigns, per Ace Metrix.

Samsung?s campaigns center around marketing its Galaxy Note, which is a hybrid between a tablet and a smartphone. The company?s ?The Best of a Phone and Tablet campaign? 60-second spot was released in Feb. and scored 686 points in Ace Metrix?s report. The same 30-second ad that launched in April ranked as No. 10 in the report.

The ?Plan and Create a New Way? Samsung campaign was comprised of either a 15 second or 30 second clip that were both launched in September. The 30-second commercial ranked as the No. 2 tablet ad campaign with a score of 672. The 15-second clip placed in No. 7.

Per Ace Metrix, the success of Samsung?s campaigns comes from the brand showing off new, multitasking features of the devices ? such as a stylus ? that consumers might not be familiar with before watching the commercial. 

Google has also actively been using television to promote its new Nexus 7 tablet. The ?Camping? campaign features a father and son on a camping trip and shows how the tablet functions as a device for families. The campaign scored below Samsung at No. 4 with 662 points and debuted in July.

Similarly, Google?s ?Things You Can Do With a Tablet? launched in late August and scored 651 points.

Amazon also placed on the list with two campaigns for its Kindle products. The first, ?Rules of Fire v2? launched in April and made Ace Metrix?s list at No. 6. The company?s newer campaign ? ?New Normal? ? placed No. 9 and promotes the new Kindle Fire HD.

The complete listings of tablets and their corresponding scores

Apple?s bite
According to a new forecast from International Data Corp., Apple?s iPad will end 2012 with 60 percent of the tablet market share. Despite the growth of other devices, the research predicts that Apple?s market share will only slip to 58 percent, showing the device?s dominance in the space (see story).

Therefore, it is interesting that Apple?s marketing for its iPad does not seem to strongly resonate with consumers, per Ace Metrix.

According to the company, Apple?s ?Do It More Beautifully? campaign has been the company?s most effective effort this year with a score of 627 points.

Barnes & Noble?s advertisements for the Nook also did not make the list, even though the company has released six ad campaigns so far this year. The highest-ranking campaign debuted in May and reached a total score of 582 points.

?The Apple ads were simply not as effective as the competitors listed, as measured by the Ace Metrix Ace Score,? Mr. Symonds said.

?This underscores a larger challenge for Apple that the incremental improvements in what was a revolutionary device ? the iPad ? are proving difficult to articulate and difficult to excite consumers with,? he said. ?This challenge is likely going to spill over into the iPhone space as well.?


Here is Samsung's "The Best of a Phone and Tablet" TV ad

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York