Samsung's New Marketing Push

Younghee Lee is living proof that Samsung is getting more serious about marketing. “I don’t know much about technology,” Lee says, disarmingly, shortly after she sits down for a brief interview at the hotel that Samsung has pretty much overrun during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Petite and fashionably dressed, Lee worked at cosmetics maker L’Oreal for a decade before joining Samsung as vice president of marketing in July. She is Samsung’s first female VP. Her job, as she describes it, is to orient Samsung more closely around customer needs. “Technology is our DNA. We should care more about what customers want,” she says.

After less than eight months on the job, Lee’s influence hasn’t yet been felt heavily in Samsung products. The first launch in which she has been involved is Samsung’s new top-of-the-line Soul, large photographs of which line the lobby of the Fira Palace hotel in Barcelona where Lee is sitting. The defining feature of the handset, officially unveiled in Barcelona, is a touch control pad below the display with icons that change according to the function. Music control symbols appear when the handset is being used to play tunes, photo icons when it’s being used as a camera, and so on.

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