How the company is trying to find the last 47,352 models.
A decline in consumer response to mass marketing campaigns, (excluding TVC’s), has caused Samsung to take further action on its washing machine recall. The company has devised a targeted communications campaign, which was discussed with Appliance Retailer in a meeting with Samsung executives yesterday.
Samsung chief marketing officer, Philip Newton emphatically explained that his number one priority is “customer safety” and the company will not rest until all machines are found, fixed, replaced or refunded.
Despite ongoing national advertising campaigns first launched by Samsung in 2013, as at 19 November 2015, over 47,000 recalled top loaders were yet to be resolved either by refund, replacement or rework.
In recent weeks, Samsung has posted 69,000 ‘Urgent Detergent’ packs (pictured) to Australian homes. The packages contain a sample of laundry detergent along with detailed information regarding the Samsung washing machine recall, including how to check the model number located on the back of Samsung top loader washing machines and the steps that should be taken for a refund, replacement or repair.
Campaign model hopes to reach remaining consumers
Samsung head of home appliances, Mike Lilly said, “The ‘Urgent Detergent’ campaign will allow Samsung to reach the Australians most likely to own an impacted top loader washing machine.”
“The campaign plays on the one thing that every Samsung washing machine customer has in common; they fill their machine with laundry detergent. By speaking to customers while they are doing their laundry it puts the task of checking their model number in hands reach.
“It’s difficult to disrupt consumers through traditional advertising so we are hoping ‘Urgent Detergent’ will not only be disruptive to customers but that it will prompt them to take the information to the laundry to check their machine,” Lilly added.
The recipients of the detergent across Australia have been selected based on aggregated data from Samsung’s warranty, service, promotion and logistics databases and worked collaboratively with its retail partners to source relevant data; as well as available data on customers that have had their washing machine serviced to assess patterns and identify ‘hot spots’ across the country.
“When it comes to product recalls, we believe this campaign to be the first of its kind. We have used data to be smarter about how we communicate with customers and this targeted approach will help us reach customers that may not have seen our national marketing campaigns,” Lilly continued.
Media campaigns in 2015
Samsung has executed advertising campaigns regarding the recall for the last two and a half years. However, the campaign launched in May 2015 was the first-of-its-kind for Samsung as a departure from the ‘typical’ recall advertisement.
It comprised print advertisements in metropolitan newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun, radio advertisements across metropolitan stations, including 2GB and 2UE, and regional stations, including Southern Cross Austero Network, digital display advertising on news websites, including The Sydney Morning Herald, and a renewed social media and search engine marketing approach. It also featured advertising across online auction houses (eBay and Gumtree) to limit the resale of affected models.
Subsequent to the mass media campaign in May, Samsung ran a campaign in September across five metro and 106 regional papers nationally, including multilingual advertisements in Korean and Chinese titles, in addition to digital and online advertising.