Samsung has scored a terrific own goal with the double withdrawal of the exploding Note7 mobile phone. Could content marketing be a way to reduce the fallout?
These are great times to be manufacturing mobile phones. Long gone are the days when people would proudly brandish their 10-year-old Nokia with the snake game on it.
Nowadays, OS upgrades alone mean you must buy a new one every 18 months. And if you want to tough it out with that old phone? Too bad, because even if you are prepared for the long haul, the battery is not.
This is fantastic for manufacturers. Small but expensive products that require renewal every couple of years = muchas lucro.
So pity then poor Samsung – the latest tech brand to encounter the curse of the exploding battery. The company has encountered the same misfortune twice – recalling 2.5m phones, only for the replacement to go the same way.
At time of writing, the press are running stories that Samsung has done the honourable thing and pulled the product completely. Just as well – because Samsung’s own site is still showing the little beauty in all its full, promotional pre-exploding battery glory.
It’s at times like this when companies need to react. The first thing people do in the aftermath is look the product up online (see below). So why hasn’t Samsung got something pre-prepared in this slot?
There are several stories to tap in to here. One is Samsung’s side of what went wrong from the manufacturing point of view. Obviously, it’s a reputable company but something managed to slip through the cracks. Secondly, what is happening within the phone? To be honest, I’d be worried if I found out I was walking around with what is effectively a bomb in my pocket.
We have spoken here before about how content marketing can be used in a crisis. It seems that brands have still some way to go. It is all very well bringing in Mark Zuckerberg for the big announcements at Mobile World Congress, but it’s just as important to use content marketing in tricky situations, too.
Because if you’re not prepared to tell your own stories, someone else will do it for you.
Samsung Note7: defusing the bomb in your pocket is part of Content24, the blog for London content marketing agency FirstWord.
