HTC makes its smartest move yet by hiring Samsung’s former CMO

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 18 Apr 2014

HTC’s marketing strategy just took a turn for the better— not because of a new campaign, but a new recruit. 

Bloomberg reports that HTC has hired en. en worked for Samsung from 2008 to 2012 played an instrumental role in creating launching the “highly successful” Galaxy br, according to his nkedIn profile. And he’s right: Samsung has had one of the most successful marketing campaigns for smartphones, alongside companies like Apple. 

This is one of the smartest decisions HTC has made since it launched the greatly improved second-generation HTC One. The Taiwanese company is due for a marketing makeover, as evidenced by some of the questionable campaigns used in the last year. For example, the Hipster Troll Carwash campaign: It might have made sense internally, but it turned out to be a huge train wreck— a poor use of Robert Downey, ., who must have cost a fortune.

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Then there was Gary Oldman, waxing poetic about how you should check the Internet to get an idea of which smartphone to buy. But HTC didn’t account for the fact that the Internet is overrun by trolls—not the nice kind of trolls who helpfully wash your car, but the mean, ruthless ones— that even with all the positive reviews of its latest flagship, there’s still bound to be some naysayers out there.

There aren’t too many details on what en will do or how much HTC has offered him. Even though the company has essentially hired its rival’s star, the smartphone market has changed. en Samsung’s Galaxy campaign hit big, consumers were just settling in with their “brs.” But now there are more brs, companies, manufacturers to account for. HTC will have to do more than concoct an effective catchphrase. It needs to convince Android users that its products are the best.