Things look rather bleak for Samsung at the moment. Within weeks of launching its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7, the company had to recall all of the more than 3 million devices it had sold, after reports of overheating and exploding batteries. Soon after, it halted production and scrapped the product entirely. All told, current estimates indicate the recall’s cost will exceed $6 billion (with one estimate even higher). But the greater concern is about the long-term hit on Samsung’s brand. After all, it is one of the most valuable global brands. Branding consultancy Interbrand estimated Samsung’s 2016 brand value at $51.8 billion.
Many prognosticators have raised red flags, suggesting that competitors will gleefully poach away large swathes of Samsung’s customers. One analyst predicted that Apple alone would gain 5–7 million new iPhone users. What is worse, these switches could take hold beyond smartphones as consumers join the Apple product ecosystem.
How concerned should Samsung be about the long-term harm to its brand from the Note 7 crisis? Not as much as the doomsayers would like us to believe. In particular, there are three reasons why Samsung will recover from the Note 7 crisis quickly and without much collateral damage.
A large, loyal base of existing customers insulates the brand. We have seen this movie before. In 2009 and 2010, Toyota recalled over 8 million vehicles globally after defects led to dozens of driver fatalities and serious injuries. Experts predicted long-term, irreversible brand damage. But when we conducted a survey of Toyota owners in early 2010, we saw a different story. By and large, the owners were highly satisfied with their vehicles. Despite the recall, they indicated they would have no problem buying another Toyota in the future and considered it one of the most reliable automotive brands. We called this the “brand insulation effect,” arguing that a large,loyal customer base insulated Toyota from rapid loss of market share.
The same is true of Samsung. In the second quarter of 2016 alone it sold over 78 million smartphones worldwide. If we count all the electronic appliances it sells, the company’s customer base is over a billion people strong. And recent signs are encouraging: When given the choice of a refund or another Note 7 in the recall’s early days (before the product was killed), 90% of customers chose another Note 7. Some Samsung superfans are still holding on to their Note 7s despite the risk of overheating. Given strong customer satisfaction with the Note line, plus loyalty to other Samsung products, this customer base will put the Note 7 fiasco behind it quite quickly.
Geographically identified brands bounce back quickly. The second thing that Samsung has going for it is the national support of South Korean consumers, who see the brand as a source of national pride. Evidence suggests that beleaguered brands that are strongly rooted in a particular heritage are able to shrug off product recalls much faster than those that are not. This is because local customers are much quicker to forgive and to give the brand a second chance. And these effects spill over to other customer groups.
Take the case of Volkswagen. Less than two months after the emissions scandal broke in 2015, German consumers were already ready to forgive the company and look past its transgressions. In a national survey, 65% Germans believed that Volkswagen still built outstanding cars and that the emissions scandal was overblown. Less than a year later, the company had returned to profitability.
In the U.S., Texas-based Blue Bell Creameries recalled its ice cream due to Listeria contamination in its and its suppliers’ plants three different times over a course of 16 months. Yet Texans remained staunch buyers, stocking up each time the ice cream returned to grocery store shelves. They were willing to risk their health to do so. In an interview with a Houston TV station, one customer said, “I know the different symptoms with Listeria, so I’m hoping that I won’t catch it. It’s more of a faith thing.”
The Note 7 crisis is limited to a single Samsung product and is self-contained. The third factor that makes the Note 7 crisis relatively benign is that it remains entirely self-contained so far. Although the source of the problem is still unclear, the overheating problem clearly does not extend to other Samsung smartphones, let alone to its other electronic appliances. What is more, the company has been emphatic inexplaining this dividing line to its customers and in decisively ending production of the defective Note 7. Academic research shows that consumers are receptive to such claims and actions after product recalls. They tend to quickly return to their pre-crisis patronage of the brand.
There is one important caveat to these optimistic predictions about Samsung’s future. If the Note 7 fiasco doesn’t turn out to be a one-off occurrence and if product design blunders and recalls spread to other Samsung products, all bets are off. Likewise, if the Note 8 launch next year is anything but flawless, the brand could suffer seriously.
But for now, Samsung is already looking past the recall. And that is what it should be doing.
Utpal M. Dholakia is the George R. Brown Professor of Marketing at Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business.
This article is about CRISIS MANAGEMENT
目前，三星的形势似乎异常惨淡。在旗舰产品Galaxy Note 7上市的几周内，三星公司因被报道机身过热和电池发生爆炸事件，不得不召回300多万部已售出Galaxy Note 7。此后不久，三星全面停止生产并完全废弃该款手机。目前数据表明三星因召回产品而遭受的损失合计已超过60多亿美元（有人估计的比这还高）。然而，人们更关心的是此次事件对三星品牌造成的长期影响。毕竟，三星是全球最有价值的品牌之一。据品牌咨询公司 Interbrand的估计，2016年三星的品牌价值约518亿美元。
预言家们已发出警示，暗示三星的竞争对手将从三星手中夺走大批的客户。一位分析家预测单单只是苹果公司将会赢得500到700万的用户。更糟糕的是，当消费者开始使用苹果产品时，三星的其他产品也将会受到影响。，
那么三星公司是多么的关心Note 7危机给其带来的长期影响呢？并不像灾害预言家门让我们相信那样。尤其是，有三方面的原因可以使三星很快的走出note7危机，并且没有其他额外的损失。
三星现存的大批忠实的用户帮助三星公司免遭此次危机的迫害。之前也有过相似的案例。2009年到2010年间，因汽车缺陷导致许多司机重伤和意外死亡，日本丰田汽车公司在全球范围内召回了800多万部汽车。专家们曾预言这件事对丰田品牌造成长期的不可扭转的影响。然而，当我们看到2010年早期丰田用户的报道时，我们看到了另一种情况。大体上，丰田买主对他们的汽车都非常的满意。尽管出现了召回事件，但是买家们声称未来还准备购买丰田汽车，并且称丰田是最可信赖的机动品牌之一。我们称此为“品牌保温效应”，即一大批的忠诚客户基础使丰田免遭受其市场份额的快速损失。
三星也是如此。仅仅在2016年的第二个季度，三星在全球范围内已出售780万部智能手机。如果我们计算三星卖出的所有产品，就可以看出三星的用户基础已过10亿之多。并且，当前前景一片大好。在召回初期，三星让消费者选择退款还是获得另外一部的Note 7（在这款手机未消失之前），90%的消费者选择一部新的Note 7。尽管存在机身过热的危险，部分三星的忠实粉丝仍然支持三星Note 7。消费者对三星Note 系列产品的超强满意度再加上对三星其他电子产品的忠诚，三星消费者基础会帮助三星很快的走出Note 7危机。
从地理区域上来说，获得认可的品牌会很快的卷土重来。三星度过危机的第二因素是全韩国消费者支持，他们把三星这个品牌看成韩国的骄傲。事实证明，强烈扎根于国家遗产，其品牌遭遇危机后能够比不是遗产的品牌更快地 走出危机。这是因为当地的消费者会更快地原谅这个品牌，并且给其第二次机会。而这些产生的效果又影响着其他消费群体。
以大众汽车为例。2015年大众汽车排放物丑闻爆发不到两个月，德国消费者已准备原谅大众汽车公司，放过这件事。在一份国家调查中发现，65%的德国人坚信大众公司将推出更瞩目的汽车，并且相信汽车排放丑闻有点夸大了。不到一年，大众公司收益转负为正。
在美国，德州系企业Blue Bell 冰淇淋公司因为其供应商被发现在产品里掺入了李氏杆菌而召回其冰淇淋产品。然而，仍不缺乏愿意冒着健康的危险忠实的买者。在华盛顿的电视采访中，一位消费者说，“我知道吃了李特斯霉菌会有什么症状。我希望我不会感染到它，这不仅仅是信仰问题。”
Note 7的危机只限于单个的三星产品，是独立的。保证Note 7危机相对良性的第三个因素是此次危机是完全独立的。尽管问题的根源还没弄清楚，但是清楚的是机身过热的问题没有牵涉到三星的其它款智能手机和电子产品。而且，三星已经向消费者强调了这点并且完全停止生产Note 7。学术研究显示在三星召回后，消费者们接受了这样的声明和做法。他们很快的更愿意购买三星产品。
对三星未来乐观的预测仍有一个重要的警告。如果Note 7的惨败最后证明不是单一的问题，如果产品的设计错误，召回事件扩展到三星其他产品，那么所有的预测都不算数了。同样的，如果明年上市的Note 根本不完美，那么三星这个品牌将严重受损。
但是目前，三星正在走出召回影响。一切就应该这样。