And no, it is not product design.
What Samsung could learn from Apple is their level of obsessive preening that makes Apple’s marketing material present so perfectly coiffed.
Apple’s website, brochures, posters and stores clearly showcase their offerings as premium, designer goods. Every product is perfectly groomed and perfectly lit, without a single strand of stray hair out of place. The information around the product is carefully written and editing to offer just enough spin mixed in with real information. It is as if each product has its own team of stylists. It is product porn of the utmost pedigree.
Compare the two websites: http://apple.com and http://samsung.com
Where’s the pride in the Samsung site? It is chock-a-block full of options and links and information and photos. It is a tad better than an online warehouse catalogue, just.
Now I do get that Samsung’s product range is astronomical in its diversity and depth when compared with Apple’s relatively mean selection. But this in itself does not a valid excuse make. Glance at any product category, like PC/Peripherals for example, and you are faced with a grid of very similar looking product thumbnails and God-forbid - cryptic product codes. This does not make it easy or particularly entertaining for the end customer.
Having a vast choice of different models is not in itself a problem. Cycling loads of models is not a problem either (except an environmental one!) It is the presentation and intention behind the communication that is lacking.
The volume of information is not the problem either. The problem is in jamming as much of it as possible on every page!
I am advocating that Samsung seriously rethink how they view/offer/present their wares. At the moment it feels like they are stuck in a factory-production, make-and-sell, good-mousetrap-is-it, link-every-thing-to-everything-else mentality at the moment.
