商务英语阅读 Samsung plays to the young generation.docVIP

Unit 2 International marketing Moving your brand image upmarket Before you read What products is Samsung, the Korean electronics group, famous for? What can Samsung do to sell its products more effectively in Europe? What can Samsung do to appeal to people who buy more expensive products? Reading Read this article by Maija Pesola from the Financial Times and do the exercises that follow. Samsung plays to the young generation Maija Pesola For hundreds of Europe’s most fanatical computer garners who took part in the first European championships this March there was glory up for grabs in best-selling games such as Halo 2 and FIFA Soccer 2005, and €150,000 (￡104,000) in prize money. For Samsung, the Korean electronics group that sponsored the event, it was a chance to strut its brand in front of Europe’s gaming community. It will be hoping that the seven-figure sum it spent on the championships at Hanover’s CeBIT computer industry exhibition will help it win over an audience that has been difficult for advertisers and marketers to reach. The games at the Samsung Euro Championships were all displayed on the company’s 19-inch liquid crystal display flat panel screens, the mobile phone event of the games was played on Samsung’s D500 handsets and the company created a special game for the event called Babe Rally. ‘The games are a platform for us to communicate with the youth sector and early adopters,’ says Hadrian Baumann, Samsung’s general manager for European marketing. Over the past five or six years, Samsung has fought to move its brand image more upmarket to compete with premium names, such as Sony. As a result, much of its marketing strategy has focused on what it calls the “high-life seeker” segment of the market一people who adopt technology early and are willing to pay a high price for it. Interbrand, the brand consultancy, recently ranked the company as the world’s 21st most valuable brand, up from 42nd in 2001. But pressure has mounted on Samsung to keep up its ef