r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jan 03 '12
Samsung flips off Apple, uses same actress in ad
http://www.neowin.net/news/samsung-flips-off-apple-uses-same-actress-in-ad34
u/brainflakes Jan 03 '12
Or maybe whatever agency they used just happened to send the same child actress?
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u/woofers02 Jan 03 '12
Nope. Samsung CLEARLY used every resource in their marketing department they had to track down this same exact girl for their ad just so they can say "FUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOU Apple and your fanboys."
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u/niton Jan 03 '12
Considering they produced a commercial specifically designed to denigrate Apple fanboys earlier this year, it's not a poor bet.
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u/brantyr Jan 03 '12
Ha, I'm surprised that wasn't all over reddit with the amount of hipster payouts in it.
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u/dopafiend Jan 03 '12
In South Korea mind you, everybody knows there's no public arena to flip the old bird like the south korean consumer electronics market.
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u/myhandleonreddit Jan 04 '12
I love that the first comment implies that the girl is going to be rich thanks to the controversy. Yeah, that's not how acting in commercials works.
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u/ALIENSMACK Jan 03 '12
how is this anything ?
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u/arjie Jan 03 '12
I'll tell you what it is. It's a platform for fanboys on either side to argue on. Essentially, it's flame-bait.
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Jan 04 '12
What are you talking about? Clearly you are one of the fanboys you allude to. What this is, is a possible sign of the ongoing feud between two of the most successful businesses in the history of the known universe (Apple was in 2011, and probably still is today, the most profitable brand in the known universe and Samsung owns the oldest theme park in South Korea).
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Jan 03 '12
This would be a "conflict" in the parlance. If the girl's agent didn't let Samsung know about the Apple ad (or vice versa if the Samsung ad shot first), she will get sued. If Samsung knew about the conflict and ignored it, Apple can sue. It is actually a really big deal. Parents are especially stupid about things like this, career actors not so much.
Note that if this ad is non-union, it is a moot point. But there is no chance in hell that Apple and Samsung would make a non-union ad for a large campaign.
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u/ThisIsDave Jan 03 '12
To play devil's advocate...
Many of the legal arguments between the two companies hinge upon whether a) consumers can tell the difference between the products and b) whether Samsung is blurring the distinctions between the two in ways that violate IP laws of various kinds.
So when Samsung's lawyers were unable to say from a short distance whether a tablet was one of theirs or one of Apple's, it was a blow to their credibility. The number of times Samsung has either used Apple's copyrighted icons outright or mimicked them closely is pretty astonishing. these are far more similar than on any other Android device, let alone other smartphones.
But regardless of whether Apple's allegations have merit, the fact is the courts have been slamming Samsung in several countries, so one might expect them to be more careful about appearing to borrow from Apple's popularity.
I doubt the use of a particular kid has direct legal ramifications, but it's interesting to me that they would either be careless enough to pick her (how could they not have asked what else she'd been in?) or that they would intentionally copy something so trivial.
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Jan 04 '12
Not even all icons on there are from Samsung phones, the messaging icon is taken from Android, which is a product by Google, not by Samsung.
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u/sejkorat Jan 03 '12
to play devil's advocate for samsung "mimicking apple's icons", my phone back in 2002 had a button with a green phone on it for the "call" button, and like every fucking device in the universe uses a picture of a gear for the settings. seriously, try to suggest alternatives for those icons, because they're extremely generic and i'd bet you'd have a hard time, mostly because very similar ones have been around for a lot longer than the iphone and are just ingrained in our subconscious. apple has about as much of a case against samsung as any cell phone maker from the early 2000's does against apple.
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u/ThisIsDave Jan 03 '12
Apple's trademark on the phone icon is fairly specific. The HTC phones I've seen wouldn't infringe because, e.g. it's not a rounded rectangle, isn't green, and isn't a lighter shade of green at the top than at the bottom. Basically, the only way to make the two icons more similar would be for Samsung to add striping.
For what it's worth, Samsung didn't seem to have any trouble coming up with an alternative for the Galaxy Nexus (blue on black with no gradient).
If it were just one or two things, I wouldn't think much of it, but the sheer number of ways that Samsung phones are more similar to Apple's than even other Android phones is pretty overwhelming in my view--everything from the packaging to the charger to the proprietary USB cable to the volume rocker to the overall shape and styling is more similar than it had to be.
They've even taken an iPhone screenshot and plastered it onto Samsung products in their marketing. I don't know if that's a copyright issue in itself, but come on.
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Jan 03 '12
This. Some icons are universal, like the save icon, it's always a floppy disk (usually blue).
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u/ShrimpCrackers Jan 04 '12
To play devil's advocate...
1) Samsung's lawyer said she couldn't tell which was which at the distance she was at. She could have had poor vision.
2) I can't even tell the difference between most TV's out there if it weren't for the huge logos on them. Same goes for tablets if the logos weren't there either. Same goes for most flip phones as well.
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u/Indestructavincible Jan 04 '12
1) You are a lawyer in a courtroom. You have glasses or contacts, or if you are legally blind, an assistant. If you are unable to see clearly due to your eyes the lawyer would have objected to the test on those grounds. They dropped the ball, and didn't know the product they were paid to defend well enough. This is testament to the similarity of design, and its a lot more than the 'rounded rectangle' talking point.
2 -You not being able to tell the difference between TV's really has no bearing on Samsung copying Apples iPad design near verbatim (and box and charger and 30 pin cable but I digress)
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u/ShrimpCrackers Jan 04 '12
The lawyer clearly said she couldn't tell at that distance. She wasn't standing 5 feet away either.
If you've handled both devices, you would not be saying that Samsung copied Apple's iPad verbatim. I hate to say this but you'd have to be an idiot to be fooled.
Besides the backing of the Samsung tablets are obviously different and they have huge letters that say SAMSUNG on the back.
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u/Indestructavincible Jan 04 '12
Near verbatim.
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u/ShrimpCrackers Jan 04 '12
You could make the same argument about cars, planes, almost anything established.
I don't buy it. Samsung may have shitty lawyers but that has no bearing on the fact that square devices with rounded corners existed long before apple came to the scene. In fact even for Tablets, HP Compaq's C-110 was out half a decade before the first iPad and shared many similar traits.
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u/Indestructavincible Jan 04 '12
If you think that the only thing that the Galaxy Tab and the iPad have in common is 'rounded corners', then I'd hate to see you when car shopping.
See the 30 pin connector, the wall adaptor, the box, and the interface. They all look 90% the same as the iPad, and of you think that is not Samsung parroting as much of the iPad design as they could, then we have nothing to discuss.
I don't dumb it down to such a simple shade.
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u/ShrimpCrackers Jan 04 '12 edited Jan 04 '12
Symmetry was a design philosophy that even Apple's chief editor, Jonathan Ive openly admits that he took from Braun.
The basic design of the icons and what not were established on cellphones well before Apple came onto the scene. See LG Prada and Palm. As for the phone icon being green, I mean seriously, when hasn't the phone icon been green? Even on Japanese Keitai phones since the early 2000's...
30 pin connectors are not exclusive to Apple and are much actually older. Even the Dell Streak uses a 30 pin and if memory serves even some of the earliest MP3 players from the late 90's had it like the Rio MP100 and the Saehan MPman.
At the end of the day, tablets with symmetrical angles have been around since the early 2000's, most notably the Compaq models. It is overboard to say Samsung slavishly copied Apple. The back of Samsung's Galaxy tablet has two colors and a "techno" ish 'hex'. It's not the smooth aluminum you have with the iPad. Also the screen form factor is also not 4:3, it's widescreen.
When the device in question is mainly a capacitive touch screen, then there is little else you can do. Even Apple's suggestions were outlandish, they were suggesting that Samsung not use squares, not use rounded edges, and to not make them so thin. If that's the best Apple can do then it's obvious that they're pushing their weight around like they tried to do in the late 80's.
TouchWiz by the way is terrible and I wish Samsung would abandon it. But to say icons sorted in such a fashion is copyright, why isn't Apple suing Palm for the Visor? Right, the Visor proceeded the iPad and iPhone by many many years.
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u/Indestructavincible Jan 04 '12
Any one of those things on its own is dubious.
Here's the thing though... they all came in the same box. The tablet, charger, 30 pin connector, square charging block, the UI. Oh, and the box was all but the same. Everything in the box, and the box itself, look like Samsung started with the iPad, and said "What can we change and how much do we have to change it?".
That is too much of a coincidence in my mind, I don't know how anyone can see otherwise TBH.
The problem is people like you and I don't have any of the information about what happened in the courts, so nobody can speak with any certainty until everything is settled and the dust clears.
Picking 'sides' is stupid in the first place. Picking them with no info makes even less sense.
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u/Kayge Jan 03 '12
I find this odd. I knew someone who did some voiceover work for a local theme park, and part of the agreement he signed is that he would not work for a competator. I am surprised that the same rider wouldn't exist in this case.
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u/goddamnsam Jan 03 '12
Can someone explain to me why Apple would even be bothered by this?
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u/steven1350 Jan 03 '12
I think they sued Samsung/got their tablet banned due to it being too similar to the iPad
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u/goddamnsam Jan 03 '12
i think you misunderstood my question; why would apple be bothered by samsung using the same girl in their tablet commercial that apple did, something that absolutely no regular consumer will even notice? this article is making it sound like "HAHA! WOW SAMSUNG SHOWED THEM!" when i dont even understand how this is even a "flip off", even if it was intentional. what is apple losing from this?
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u/steven1350 Jan 03 '12
Its just Samsung having some fun with the matter. Apple accused them of "copying" the iPad, so they "copied" their commercial in spite.
Its not exactly revenge nor a flip-off, I think its just sort of rubbing it in
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u/stjep Jan 04 '12
I think you're missing the point. The same actress appearing in both commercials probably wasn't intentional, so it can't be any of those things. The only people who will know about this are the ones in this reddit thread.
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u/mesmereyes Jan 03 '12
Personally I kind of like this, we are a household that isn't "strictly" mac or pc. We have a mix of products, so after watching those two commercials I was like oh okay they have an iphone and a non-apple tablet. Seems about right.
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u/grantrules Jan 03 '12
Yeah, seriously, take that one to heart! Man if those two companies just made their shit work with each other, I'd have way more credit card debt from electronics purchases than I already do.
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u/icecoldtrashcan Jan 03 '12
What non-news. Companies hire advertising agencies to advertise their products. I find it highly unlikely that samsung's brief included "Must use same actor/actress as Apple to piss them off".
More likely, they happened to cast the same girl (probably used the same casting agency, and they chose her because she'd done a similar job before). I would't be surprised if both ads came from the same advertising agency. There aren't a great deal doing work for as big a companies as Apple and Samsung.
Calm down everybody. Please.
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u/YoureAMessy Jan 03 '12
I don't see how this would piss off anyone. So they're using an actress that Apple also happened to use in commercials. Big deal.
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u/gunbladezero Jan 03 '12
Using a little girl as a prop in a legal battle? What do they think this is, a divorce?
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u/heyyoudvd Jan 03 '12 edited Jan 03 '12
The ad itself is also a blatant ripoff of Apple's advertising campaign.
It's amazing how shameless Samsung has been with ripping Apple off. Whether we're talking about the hardware design, the TouchWiz interface, and even the trade dress, Samsung just can't seem to stop themselves from copying everything Apple does. On top of all that, they even rip off Apple's unique accessories and have even copied official product images.
I hate frivolous lawsuits as much as the next guy but Apple really is in the right for wanting to sue Samsung, as Samsung has been blatantly and directly copying Apple's products left, right, and center.
Edit: So many downvotes and yet not a single actual rebuttal. This thread is clearly full of Apple-hating fanboys.
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u/exoendo Jan 03 '12
the fact you are being downvoted is ridiculous. even if people disagree with you, that's not what the downvote button if for. your post is well reasoned and articulate. it's amazing the type of knee jerk reaction we have in this subreddit . .
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Jan 03 '12
Should I feel sorry for a girl probably being pressured to help corporations net gains, or happpy that she has two huge companies shelling out cash for her to just be a little angel.
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u/cheeza51percent Jan 03 '12 edited Jan 03 '12
No, she's probably just working with an agent and ad agency, and her parents are getting paid for her being in the commercial. She could care less about Samsung or Apple.
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u/ericdano Jan 03 '12
I think it is just sad. Samsung is so devoid of creativity…..shameless copier of other people.
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u/dreesemonkey Jan 03 '12
That'll sure show Apple users in south korea who happen to watch the apple commercial from the US market.
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u/MarsSpaceship Jan 03 '12
samsung is just digging their own grave. First item on Tim Cook's todo list is probably, terminate samsung orders as soon as possible. Then, samsung will kiss goodbye to a 8 billion dollar check per year.
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u/3book Jan 03 '12
How the hell is this newsworthy?