The Samsung Galaxy S5, the premier model of the South Korean gadget giant, just hopped on the #icebucketchallenge bandwagon, and nominated some other phones to do the same. The response to this has been a mixed bag, with some saying that the move was brilliant. Still some say that Samsung shouldn’t have used the fund-raising act to market its product.
The original #ALSicebucketchallenge, already an Internet phenomenon that has seen a wave of videos invade our social media news feeds, is a fund-raising effort to raise awareness and research funding for the disease “amyotrophic lateral sclerosis” (ALS). The common stipulation is that the nominated people will have 24 hours to comply or else they should donate to the charity that is raising funds for research against the disease. Watch the Samsung Galaxy S5’s video below.
Given that the Samsung Galaxy S5 is water-resistant, there is some smart marketing going on here – this much you can’t deny. To drive home the water-resistant point – as other flagships are not – the Galaxy S5 voice in the video even nominates the iPhone 5S, the HTC One M8, and the Nokia Lumia 930 to take the same challenge. Add a cute “gosh, that’s freezing” in a robotic voice and you have a very relevant video.
But is it a correct move for Samsung to have done this? A lot of tech CEOs have taken the ice bucket challenge, and some people are saying that Samsung’s CEOs should have done it that way. Some people also feel that Samsung jumped on the tidal wave of attention given to a charitable cause to market their product. Some would say that is just smart marketing. Some would say otherwise. What do you say?
SOURCE: Samsung Mobile UK