Samsung ‘fast follower’ mantra extends to marketing as well

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A story today from Fortune writer Michal Lev-Ram titled “Samsung’s road to global domination” tells an interesting anecdote about the company’s ad team on iPhone 5 launch day. The team, led by chief marketing officer Todd Pendleton with help from ad agency 72andSunny, sat in a Los Angeles restaurant following real-time updates from Tim Cook’s iPhone 5 unveiling.

Two hours later the team had crafted the now well-known ad campaign mocking iPhone line sitters:

They huddled around tables mounted with laptops and TV screens, carefully tracking each new feature and monitoring the gush of online comments on the new device via blogs and social media sites. As the data flowed in, writers from the company’s advertising agency, who were also camped out in the restaurant turned war room, scrambled to craft a response…

Two hours later, when Cook stepped off the stage, the Samsung group was already drafting a series of print, digital, and TV ads. The following week — as the iPhone 5 went on sale — the company aired a TV ad mocking Apple “fanboys” queuing up for the new phone. (“The headphone jack is going to be on the bottom!”) The 90-second commercial went on to become the most popular tech ad of 2012, garnering more than 70 million views online. More important, in the weeks following the launch of Apple’s iPhone 5, Samsung sold a record-breaking number of its own signature smartphone, the Galaxy S III.