a checkered pattern using the Samsung colors of blue and white, spelling
the word “victory” one letter at a time.
The recruits then formed the numeral “10,000,000,” the target number
of mobile phone sales that Samsung had set as the threshold for success.
That year’s Samsung D500 handset, a simple, compact slider phone, had
rung in a bonanza. The recruits formed a picture of the phone, followed by
the word “champ,” before forming a digital watch with the word “hero,”
then another mobile phone with the word “star.”
“It was amazing, scary, and weird,” said a Samsung employee whose
manager helped run the event. She and many others likened the pageantry
to North Korea’s mass games ceremony.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
North Korea’s Arirang Mass Games, August 4, 2012.—
A SAMSUNG PUBLIC RELATIONS executive, told of the comparison between
Samsung and North Korea, told me over Korean barbecue one night,
“That’s offensive. We are a company. Don’t compare us to North Korea.
Compare us to Apple, IBM, HP.
“Yes, we’re secretive,” he admitted. “But so is Apple. The Samsung
Man is just a stereotype,” he said. “It’s not the company I see.”
Samsung hates it when journalists draw comparisons between Samsung