Samsung Electronics Company
The Samsung brand
Originated as low-cost manufacturer of black and white televisions in the year 1969, super sized with a semiconductor segment in 1970s, Samsung delivered massive volume of low-cost consumer electronics to domestic and OEM products to both domestic and global markets until 1993. Due to this fact, company didn’t develop global brand awareness until then. In the global arena, Samsung’s brand message was fragmented and its logo presentations were inconsistent.
In the year 1993, “new management initiative” started transform Samsung from a “cheap OEM” to a high value-added products provider”. At this point, company realized to take the brand to global platform and started thinking the importance of global positioning and the powering the brand. Initially, management targeted to build corporate brand image across 200 countries with focus on 17 selected products. But, in the early period, internal challenges of marketing misconceptions among the top level managers turned down efforts of this visionary growth measures.
But, the company’s challenges turned into a different outcome in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in year 1997. Fast actions were required to curtail the financial threats and massive restructuring efforts were imminent. Samsung utilized this opportunity wisely and the result was a turnaround from $15 billion debt to $4.6 billion within a short period of 5 years.
Samsung’s global marketing director is assessing how to build the global brand reputation of the company further and upgrade the company’s worldwide brand image to show how to build a global brand. The challenge of Samsung’s marketing director is the branding strategies in global markets. Marketing team has to examine ...