of a Hollywood filmmaker. The agreements with Sprint and others
mandated a process of reviews and approvals for projects like this.
Watching him in these meetings, Skarzynski described Kim as “a
neophyte.”
“He didn’t understand anything about products....[He] had no clue.” As
Skarzynski made his presentations on what Samsung could design for
Warner Bros., he sensed the Warner Bros. executives nodding off. He got
the impression it was not a high priority.
Warner Bros. went with K.T.’s suggestion of using an existing Samsung
design. The mobile CEO fastened on a neon-green keyboard and an unusual
spring-loaded earpiece that snapped up to reveal the display.
“It sounded to me like a gun cocking,” Skarzynski said. “It made me
incredibly uncomfortable.”
In May 2003, Kim and his marketers watched Warner Bros.’ screening
with excitement. Neo’s female sidekick, Trinity, roared out of a parking
garage, sending her car hurtling in the air, landing, and swerving to the
right. Morpheus, in the passenger seat during this daring escape, pulled out
his Samsung phone.
“Operator,” Link, the operator of their mother ship, answered.
“Get us out of here, Link,” ordered Morpheus.
The product placement appeared eight times, sometimes for a split
second, sometimes for a few seconds at a time. Kim’s marketers celebrated
victory, the South Korean press went crazy, and Samsung wrote the product
placement into its official history. Kim kicked off an ad campaign using
scenes and characters from The Matrix Reloaded.
“That was a big success,” he told me. “It elevated the brand to
something more unified and noticeable.”
Though the product placement itself didn’t upend everything, it showed
that Samsung was starting to graduate in the public’s mind from a cheap
knockoff manufacturer to a global multinational.
Kim, reading BusinessWeek in August 2003, saw Samsung racing to the
top of the world’s hundred most valuable brands. It was the only Korean
company on the list. Samsung came in at number twenty-five with a
valuation of $10.8 billion, shooting up from number thirty-four the
previous year.
Samsung was closing in fast on Sony, which was stuck around number