Samsung CMO Leaves for Intel
Eric Kim, the global marketing chief for consumer electronics giant Samsung, left the company last week for a post as executive VP of marketing with data chip manufacturer Intel.
Under Kim, Samsung’s annual international marketing budget climbed steadily, with an increasing percentage spent in promotional activity. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company has spent $10 billion in marketing since 1999 in order to build awareness of Samsung products. It currently has $600 million in agency contracts under review.
The company won the 2004 Super Reggie for its campaign promoting a line of cellular phones via tie ins to the futuristic action film The Matrix. The Samsung DigitAll program leveraged product placement in the movie and in the video game Enter the Matrix. Spending on that campaign alone, which extended into 30-plus languages across television, Internet, FSIs and in-store, was estimated at $100 million.
Kim’s responsibilities will be pick up by Gregory Lee, who joined Korea-based Samsung as CMO in July from the Asian-Pacific consumer business unit of pharmaceutical conglomerate Johnson & Johnson.
