A Brand Bowl Scorecard: Part II — The Tech War – Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc (GOOG)

Already having lobbed a few salvos at Apple, Samsung continued with the theme of being cool in its ad. This time, though, they laid off the new iPhone 5, or anything Apple-related for that matter, and instead tried to focus on the Samsung Galaxy–or as they call it, “the next big thing.” It was a funny ad just because of the Rudd-Rogen banter over who was supposed to do the spot, though the mechanics of the phone were left out, leaving some people confused as to what the Galaxy actually is, or when it’s coming out. Granted, nobody ever said ads were supposed to make sense, or even be related to what you’re selling (again, going back to the “Farmer” ad from Dodge), but if you’re going to spend $15 million to advertise a new product, you should have that product be more prominent, or at least have an ad that leaves an impression on viewers who will find it on YouTube the next day and share it on every personal account they have. Samsung seemed to do neither particularly well, which makes the purpose of the ad a bit questionable. Forbes contributer Hayden Shaugnessy theorized that Samsung is trying to make a name for itself more in developing markets, where Apple doesn’t hold as much sway, which is a potentially profitable gambit, and create an environment where Apple may have to do the catching up. The new Galaxy may be a pretty good phone, but it didn’t get the pomp that I think it deserved for a Super Bowl ad.

In the tech ad wars, I may have to give the edge to Blackberry here. It was a bold attempt to remake themselves in a constantly evolving industry. It also shows that Blackberry is ready for a big move this year against not only Apple, but also Samsung and the other Android players. Of course, this also means Google is going to be a winner as well because it is their system that has driven the Apple challengers with ease of development and availability to tech companies for installation. It will be an interesting year to watch for not only Samsung, but also to see if Blackberry’s facelift is successful, and how Apple tries to step its game up to keep itself different, which it has been able to do for the past three decades.

The article A Brand Bowl Scorecard: Part II — The Tech War originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by John McKenna.

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