Samsung's image doing just fine after Apple verdict, poll finds
A pro-Apple verdict last month could have sent Samsung's brand image tumbling, but a new poll says the company is hotter than ever.
While it's easy to look at the overwhelmingly pro-Apple verdict handed down by a San Jose, Calif. jury last month as damaging to Samsung's image, a new survey suggests that's not the case.
According to the results of a new survey put out by polling firm YouGov, Samsung has had a big comeback in the past two weeks, and actually managed to surpass Apple in the firm's proprietary "buzz score" rating among both early technology adopters and those in the 18-34 age group.
The methodology behind the numbers asks people if they have "heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or by word of mouth," then answer whether it was positive or negative. The firm then turns that score into a number between 100 to -100 (-100 is completely negative, and 100 is completely positive). Points are assigned by "subtracting negative feedback from positive."
Here's what that looks like for "early technology adopters":
And for 18-34 year olds:
Per YouGov, that data comes from online surveys of about 5,000 people each day in the U.S.
On August 24, Apple was given a sweeping verdict against Samsung in a U.S. trial between the two companies. That result puts Samsung on the hook for more than a billion dollars in damages, and has given Apple the grounds to request permanent U.S. sales bans against the infringing products -- an item that hasn't yet been sorted out.
While not a definitive insight into whether those opinions were weighed by the results of the trial, YouGov's Ted Marzilli offers that there was strong evidence to support the rankings were closely tied.
"Samsung's Buzz score was cut in half from 26 on that day to 12 by August 31, while Apple rose modestly from 33 to 38 in the same period, making a 26 point difference between the two brands at the end of the month," Marzilli wrote.
He added that Samsung then proceeded to make gains, and actually surpassed Apple late last week.
YouGov's findings match up with a study performed by researchers at London-based Media Measurement that suggested Apple's brand image took a dive following the verdict. Those results, published by Forbes last week, found an overwhelming number of those who took to Twitter and Facebook in order discuss the verdict, had negative things to say about the company.