“Hi. I’m Tim Cook, from Palmy.” The man saying it is not the Apple chief executive. He is a Harcourts real-estate agent from Palmerston North, New Zealand, and Samsung New Zealand has hired him to sell the Galaxy Z Fold 8.
The ad opens on a plain backdrop with deliberate pacing, a deliberate echo of an Apple product presentation. A line posted on Samsung New Zealand’s official TikTok account sets the joke: “Tim Cook has an announcement. And for once, it’s about Galaxy.” On camera, the New Zealand Cook calls the Fold 8 “the best of both worlds,” a nod to its compact folded shape and larger inner display. He signs off with “You can quote me, Tim Cook from Palmerston North.” Samsung keeps his hometown in the endorsement itself, so the praise and the detail that separates him from Apple’s Cook arrive together. It is a paid endorsement, not an independent review.
Samsung went beyond the main spot. According to Mashable, more videos show the same Cook unboxing the phone and trying out features such as photo editing and the bigger screen.
Timed against Apple’s foldable
The timing is the real point. Apple had just announced the iPhone Duo, reported as its first foldable, on September 9, in what was also the first major product launch under new chief executive John Ternus. Gizmodo’s account adds that Tim Cook, after 15 years leading the company, had moved to executive chairman, and that Apple’s presentation opened with Cook apparently taking centre stage before Ternus took over. Gizmodo established no coordination between Apple and Samsung, and it carried no response from Apple.
Samsung’s pitch is seniority. A late entrant has arrived in foldables, and the company wants buyers to remember who got there first. It has done this kind of thing before: its 2018 “Ingenius” campaign went after the iPhone notch and the dropped headphone jack. The Fold 8 push also runs alongside a separate “Switchers” campaign aimed at people reluctant to leave Apple’s ecosystem. Taken together, the two suggest Samsung sees Apple’s arrival as a chance to recruit rather than a threat.
Whether the iPhone Duo pulls more shoppers toward foldables, or simply hands them another rival to weigh against Samsung, is something the coming months will show.
Sources
- Samsung Finds Another Tim Cook to Sell the Galaxy Z Fold 8
- The Tim Cook Samsung Phone Ad Has a Namesake Twist
