Samsung Okayed Vicious Apple Ads Two Days After Steve Jobs Passed Away

1 minute read
By Matt Vella

The Apple-Samsung patent infringement suit has unearthed gobs of interesting, normally private information. There was Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ “Holy War” with Google, a possible “magic wand” in the works to control your TV, not to mention all manner of back and forth over who was winning the ad war.

But the latest may be the most incendiary: it appears Samsung green-lit its mocking anti-Apple ads just days after Jobs died. Here’s a timeline:

Oct 4, 2011
From Samsung’s VP of U.S. sales Mike Pennington to Samsung America CEO Dale Sohn and CMO Todd Pendleton:

“As you have shared previously, we are unable to battle [Apple] directly in our marketing. If it continues to be Samsung’s position to avoid attacking Apple … can we go to Google and ask them to launch a campaign against Apple…”

Oct 5, 2011
Steve Jobs dies.

Oct 7, 2011
Pendleton to Pennington:

“Hey Michael, We are going to execute what you are recommending in our holiday [Galaxy S2] campaign and go head to head with iPhone 4S.”

Digging deeper, AppleInsider claims Samsung executives discussed Jobs’ passing in even starker terms, saying it might have “unintended benefit for Apple.”

[Apple 2.0]

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