SAMSUNG BRAND PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

 

Varadarajan, DeFanti & Busch (2006) state that among that matters, brand portfolio management is a way to determine whether to add, delete or keep a brand. With the success of its electronic business, Samsung has been globally recognized as an industry leader in technology. Samsung offers a wide variety of products such as smartphones, tablets, home appliances, and watches. In 2007 after the smartphone revolution, Samsung became the biggest competitor of Apple and that made the smartphone category to be the master brand in the brand portfolio. Samsung’s tagline ‘the next big thing’ is what drives the company to use cutting-edge technology to keep up with the new technologies. As much as the master brand is the smartphone category in the portfolio, synergy is displayed in all Samsung products when it comes to cutting-edge technology.



Samsung brand reputation

Soumi (2015) states that brand reputation is a holistic judgment of a brand by stakeholders. Since 2017, Samsung’s brand reputation has been under a lot of scrutinies after it had to recall its Samsung Galaxy Note 7 which was going up in smoke and resulted in the brand recalling the phones back. This resulted in the company’s reputation declining and the brand had to act to redeem itself. Samsung became proactive and asked customers to bring back the phones to exchange with another model while investigating the problem. To redeem its reputation back the company had to acknowledge the problem, communicate effectively, investigate the problem and bring new quality measures. With the new quality measures, Samsung was able to introduce a newly improved Galaxy Note 8.


Consumers’ perspective on transparency

According to Storozhuk (2022) brand transparency is a process of being honest and upfront with consumers about what a brand does and why it does it. This assists the brand to gain consumer trust and build a brand reputation.  Thus, Naidoo (2017) states that consumers believe that Samsung is positively aligned in terms of communicating brand differentiation and responsibility and believe that the brand needs to do more in terms of reputational elements of credibility. Consumers feel that the brand does not truly encourage two-way communication, and focuses rather on product communication. Consumers feel like the brand is not transparent enough to them about what it does and why it does it, it focuses on selling and that creates a gap between the brand and them.

Consumers’ perspective on ethical practices

Samsung has been found guilty of numerous unethical practices. In 2013 a scandal resurfaced that the brand paid students in Taiwan to write bad reviews about its competitors and later claimed that this was one of its strategies. According to the research conducted by the Ethical Consumer, their research identified a number of ethical issues with Samsung. One of the issues includes deliberately causing phones to slow down so that customers can buy new ones. Singh (2022) also mentions that the brand continues to exploit and conduct unethical practices by exploiting its workers by making them work irregular hours. Consumers also feel like the explosion of the Galaxy Note 7 was an unethical act that put the lives of consumers at risk.

Consumer perspective on sustainability

Samsung emphasises its sustainability in the manufacturing phase. The company uses renewable energy sources such as solar in its establishments and incorporates the use of recycled water and waste. The brand has also made advances in sustainability by sourcing 100% renewable electricity for all its establishments in the United States, Europe, and China. The company now uses more renewable energy and capitalises a lot on research so that it can build energy-efficient products and develop carbon capture technology.

Recommendations on Samsung's reputation

  • Samsung should be more transparent with its customers, to allow interaction so that customers can be able to resonate with the brand and improve the brand image.
  • Samsung should develop a smartphone that will be a flanker brand. This smartphone must not have a deteriorating performance just like others, this would probably be targeted at students who do not have enough money to change mobile phones every other year.
  • Samsung should also think about more active brand-building management with its appliances in order to create a strong relevance in its market categories, for example, its television has potential if more focus could be put on them.


References

https://www.samsung.com/za/

Naidoo, S. (2017). “Understanding the role that brand communication plays in influencing brand reputation from a consumer perspective against the Urde and Greyser Corporate Brand Identity and Reputation Matrix: Samsung South Africa. Vega School.

Rashmigosai. (2018, November 21). The Brand Explorer. Retrieved from https://thebrandexplorer.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/the-brand-portfolio-management-brand-reputation-of-the-next-big-thing/

Singh, S. (2022, October 17). Soapboxie. Retrieved from https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/Is-Samsung-An-Ethical-Company

Storozhuk, A. (2022, October 17). PR News. Retrieved from https://prnews.io/blog/48-why-do-brands-need-transparency-studies-and-recommendations.html

Suomi, K. (2015) Managing brand identity and reputation ‒ A case study from Finnish higher education. Doctoral thesis.  Publications of Turku School of Economics, Series A., Turku, Finland.

Varadajan,R., DeFanti, M.P. and Busch, P.S., 2006. Brand portfolio, corporate image, and reputation: Managing brand deletions. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 34(2), pp.195-205.


 

 

 

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