January 15, 2020 • 11 mins
James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Grace Dolan, VP of Home Entertainment Integrated Marketing, Samsung Electronics America.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James K. Techie. You're listening to the C
Space Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders
from CS. Hi. I'm James K. Techy and we are
in the C Space Studio here at CS and here
with us is Grace Dolan, VP of Home Entertainment Integrated
(00:23):
Marketing at Samsung Electronics America. Welcome. Thank you so much. YEI,
thanks for having me, thanks for being here. So first
of all, I think a lot of people know what
Samsung is, but can you please define your title and
your role in the organization as if you were to
introduce yourself to someone here at CTS. Yeah, so you know,
I'm the head of marketing for the Home Entertainment division.
I think the most simple, the simplest way to describe
(00:46):
it is Chief Consumer Officer for Home Entertainment. Right. My
job is to be obsessed with the consumer and make
sure that their experience with our product is fantastic in
every way, and to communicate that and say, song is huge.
It's CS it always is. You have a huge person. Yeah,
this is our coming out party. Every year we you know,
introduced our lineup or you know whatever year that is.
(01:08):
Um and and We always try to make a really
really big splash every year. This year is no different
and I know you have. I know you have. So
we're gonna talk about gaming. So why did Samsung get
into gaming? What are you doing in the gaming space
that you're excited to talk about? Yeah, so, you know,
it's funny. A couple of years ago, we were really
you know, looking at the category. We were seeing a
(01:30):
flat market, and we started talking to consumers about why
they were not upgrading their TVs. And for the most part,
it's because consumers thought that their TVs were fine, but like,
my TV is fine, you know. The one exception though,
was with passion areas. So in the areas of sports
gaming streaming, we realized that if their experience with our
(01:53):
product was not good, it actually impacted their game performance. So,
for example, if you're a first person shooter and the
frame rates on my TV can't keep up with the
frame rates on your console, you're dead. And that was
really yeah, you're in it, sniped, and that was an
impetus for consumers actually upgrade their TVs. And so for us,
we're like, gosh, we really need to get to know
(02:14):
this consumer and we need to enter gaming. So, you know,
the first thing we did, we didn't really know that
much about this world, and we found a really fantastic partner.
We partnered with Xbox a couple of reasons. You know, One,
they're they're an expert in gaming, they have been for years. Um,
we wanted to be authentic. We wanted to make sure
(02:35):
that we were coming in not as you know, like
a little side hustle thing, but like you know, we're
just trying to have a meaningful relationship with this consumer.
And they helped us long. The biggest contribution I think
they made for us was just helping us understand gamers needs.
So what are the things that are the most important
to gamers as far as the TV console experience goes.
(02:56):
And we started a completely different innovation road map as
a result of it. So today and you'll see it,
you know, on the on the showroom floor, we have
the best gaming TVs available in the industry. We have
g sing, we are freezing, we have you know, the
fastest refrustrates, the lowest input lag. We have auto game mode.
I mean, we have all of these features that we've
(03:17):
incorporated as a result of just understanding the gamer um
and we have so many more things to come right,
and how our gamers reacting to this? You know, I
think the thing about gamers is that they are an
extremely savvy set of consumers. Um. They get it. They
totally get it. They get that, you know, this product
(03:40):
needs to work in order for them to have a
good experience, and they get that we have a very
sincere and authentic UM mission to do that, that we're
that we're really dedicated and committed to having um gamers
love their experience. I know there's a mission that you've
been promoting here at c Yes, Uh, you've done a
(04:01):
panel I believe how are brands engaging with the sports
and gaming which is what we're talking about here. So
what were some of the takeaways from that? Yeah, you know,
I think the biggest takeaway is when you look at
the world of gaming today, I think consumers still I
think the world still thinks that it's it's niche and
it's really not. There's almost seventy of Americans that would
(04:22):
self describe as a gamer. That means more Americans are
playing video games than not playing video games, which means
this is now just mainstream entertainment. For a brand not
to get involved with gaming in some way or gamers
is you know, it's a myth and you're you're not
making the same cultural impact that you could be. So
(04:42):
e sports is obviously a huge part of gaming, it's
a growing part of gaming. Um, what kind of what
kind of flasts the same song have for brands who
want to kind of get into the e sports arena?
You know it's the same, it's a it's like not
the same obviously, but it's very similar to traditional sports. Um,
the way to think about it it really is, you know,
there's a there's a broad spectrum of genres in gaming,
(05:05):
so you really have to understand the league's understand the games,
understand the fans. So someone who is a fan of
MBA two K is going to be completely different from
a fan of Overwatch, right, so when you're making a
decision to support one or the other league, that kind
of demographic and psychographic behavioral profile of that fan is
(05:27):
gonna be wildly different. So you have to really understand
the games and then just understand your brand and your
your target audience and where is the match the best
in in you know, those those two kind of audience profiles,
and how do Samsung play in the kind of e
sports space and kind of where do you see that going?
And you said, you mentioned about gaming in general, that
(05:48):
there's a lot of exciting things to come imagine the
sports as part of that roadmap in that thought, so
we're still dipping our toes UM. You know, for us,
we've had a more general approach because we think that
our TV offers an experience. Is that no matter what
type of game you play, you're gonna have a great experience,
whether if it's you know, RPG and graphics rich or
really really fast moving, UM, you know, first person shooter.
(06:10):
I don't think we want to commit to just one UM,
so we've we've had a little bit more of a
general approach on our SSD business. However, UM we have
can you just define that acronym for oh wow, solid
state drive? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just assume you know,
we're talking to gamers. They all know UM. But you know,
it's significantly improved the performance of you know, PC gaming.
(06:32):
We're talking to Grace stool And of Samsung Electronics America
America about gaming. UM five G obviously is it must
be a huge part of where you're thinking about how
all this is going and how people are going to
be getting this content. I am obsessed with five g
I'm so excited about five g Um. So one of
the things that I always talk about is how consumers
are changing. And you know, at the end of the day,
(06:54):
consumers still want all the same things, right. They want,
you know, a good price, they want a good product,
they want convenience. But for me, the biggest, my biggest
observation is how we're defining those things. So your definition
of a good product, and you know, so much of
it is now defined by a good experience, and your
definition of convenience is completely different. And the example I
(07:14):
love to give is like with gaming and Blockbuster. Right,
do you remember when you used to go to Blockbuster
and rent games? I have a hazy memory. Yeah, it
was a reality. And at the time, it was super
convenient that you could go to one place and find
all the games that you wanted and just bring it
home that day and bring it back whenever you wanted.
And then all of a sudden there was game Fly
and Netflix, and then you know, they were delivering games
(07:35):
to your house and you just stick it back in
the little packet and mail it back and then now
they're streaming, right, so you can get games through Steam
now and five G is going to enable that times
a million, right, so access to an unlimited number of games. Bandwidth,
no more bandwidth constraints. Right, So, right now you have
(07:58):
to wait like an hour for your game to download
if you want to play a game, right, imagine that
it's just seconds. And imagine you're looking at a screen.
You're not even connected. Everything is wireless thanks to by
G and you're looking at a screen with all the
games in the world, and it won't take an hour
to download the game. You've never played it, but you're like,
why not, let's just take a second. Right now, there's hesitation, Right,
(08:22):
You look at a game and you know it's going
to take a lot of commitment. It's a commitment, so
you're like, maybe not, I'll just stick to the game
that I love. There's gonna be commendous impact to the industry,
so much more exploration. There's gonna be you know, new
games tried, old games tried. It's it's gonna it's gonna
have a really, really, really great impact on the category
of the industry. Have you personally gotten more into gaming
(08:42):
as you've delved into this space. You know what, I'm
I am not a gamer, but I love gamers. I
love them because they're so passionate, and I love any
consumer that loves what they do. And yeah, I'm yeah,
we're talking before this, we're talking before the interview. You know,
I have young kids and you do too, and I
imagine that the reality for our kids in the games
(09:04):
that they're going to be able to play. Maybe I'll
be able to introduce them to some of my favorite games,
and they'll be able to play games that I could
never even possibly dream of. Yeah. Well, I mean it's
funny because my husband games, um, and we're all already
starting to see a very strong interest from the kids,
Like they are already starting to gravitate towards certain types
of games. I already know what kind of game where
(09:24):
they may turn into. It's funny at such a young
age that you already start seeing that interest. Yeah, And
as a marketer who's obviously getting more into the gaming space,
understanding those different divides is very important. Yeah, I mean
completely different sets of consumers there um gaming. As you
you mentioned in the earlier statistic that I think sevent
Americans are playing games However, gaming has this stereotype of
(09:46):
being a young, white male thing to do. So as
a marketer, how do you look about broadening that and
thinking about diversity as you're going about your work. Yeah,
I mean, I think there's a lot of stereotypes about
gamers in general, like the traditional niche impression of just
a bunch of kids, white male kids or overgrown white
(10:07):
male kids living in their mom's biggest fence in their
thirties basement always comes up, and and it's terrible because
right of people in the United States are actually gaming.
I think we're where we have a tremendous responsibility as
marketers to start appropriately portraying who the gamer is in
(10:28):
our communication or advertising. For the most part, you know,
we like to feature gameplay in our creative and we're
making a concerted effort to say, hey, let's feature more
players and let's make sure that they represent what players
actually look like today, which is a really broad set
of genders, ethnic nation, Like everybody everybody is gaming now. Um,
(10:49):
you used to work at Johnson and Johnson, which seems
like a very far cry from Samsung Electronics America and gaming.
But I wonder are there lessons you learned there that
you apply to your work now. Yeah, I think the
one lesson has always put the consumer first. Always put
the consumer first, and you can't go wrong in your decision.
And that's that's what we do with Samsung and it's
been the guiding the guiding star at the north Star,
(11:10):
Gray Dolan, thank you so much for sharing your north
Star with us, Samsung Electronics America. That's great to be here.
Thank you so much. This podcast is in partnership with
the I Heart Podcast Network
Hi, I'm James K. Techie. You're listening to the C
Space Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders
from CS. Hi. I'm James K. Techy and we are
in the C Space Studio here at CS and here
with us is Grace Dolan, VP of Home Entertainment Integrated
(00:23):
Marketing at Samsung Electronics America. Welcome. Thank you so much. YEI,
thanks for having me, thanks for being here. So first
of all, I think a lot of people know what
Samsung is, but can you please define your title and
your role in the organization as if you were to
introduce yourself to someone here at CTS. Yeah, so you know,
I'm the head of marketing for the Home Entertainment division.
I think the most simple, the simplest way to describe
(00:46):
it is Chief Consumer Officer for Home Entertainment. Right. My
job is to be obsessed with the consumer and make
sure that their experience with our product is fantastic in
every way, and to communicate that and say, song is huge.
It's CS it always is. You have a huge person. Yeah,
this is our coming out party. Every year we you know,
introduced our lineup or you know whatever year that is.
(01:08):
Um and and We always try to make a really
really big splash every year. This year is no different
and I know you have. I know you have. So
we're gonna talk about gaming. So why did Samsung get
into gaming? What are you doing in the gaming space
that you're excited to talk about? Yeah, so, you know,
it's funny. A couple of years ago, we were really
you know, looking at the category. We were seeing a
(01:30):
flat market, and we started talking to consumers about why
they were not upgrading their TVs. And for the most part,
it's because consumers thought that their TVs were fine, but like,
my TV is fine, you know. The one exception though,
was with passion areas. So in the areas of sports
gaming streaming, we realized that if their experience with our
(01:53):
product was not good, it actually impacted their game performance. So,
for example, if you're a first person shooter and the
frame rates on my TV can't keep up with the
frame rates on your console, you're dead. And that was
really yeah, you're in it, sniped, and that was an
impetus for consumers actually upgrade their TVs. And so for us,
we're like, gosh, we really need to get to know
(02:14):
this consumer and we need to enter gaming. So, you know,
the first thing we did, we didn't really know that
much about this world, and we found a really fantastic partner.
We partnered with Xbox a couple of reasons. You know, One,
they're they're an expert in gaming, they have been for years. Um,
we wanted to be authentic. We wanted to make sure
(02:35):
that we were coming in not as you know, like
a little side hustle thing, but like you know, we're
just trying to have a meaningful relationship with this consumer.
And they helped us long. The biggest contribution I think
they made for us was just helping us understand gamers needs.
So what are the things that are the most important
to gamers as far as the TV console experience goes.
(02:56):
And we started a completely different innovation road map as
a result of it. So today and you'll see it,
you know, on the on the showroom floor, we have
the best gaming TVs available in the industry. We have
g sing, we are freezing, we have you know, the
fastest refrustrates, the lowest input lag. We have auto game mode.
I mean, we have all of these features that we've
(03:17):
incorporated as a result of just understanding the gamer um
and we have so many more things to come right,
and how our gamers reacting to this? You know, I
think the thing about gamers is that they are an
extremely savvy set of consumers. Um. They get it. They
totally get it. They get that, you know, this product
(03:40):
needs to work in order for them to have a
good experience, and they get that we have a very
sincere and authentic UM mission to do that, that we're
that we're really dedicated and committed to having um gamers
love their experience. I know there's a mission that you've
been promoting here at c Yes, Uh, you've done a
(04:01):
panel I believe how are brands engaging with the sports
and gaming which is what we're talking about here. So
what were some of the takeaways from that? Yeah, you know,
I think the biggest takeaway is when you look at
the world of gaming today, I think consumers still I
think the world still thinks that it's it's niche and
it's really not. There's almost seventy of Americans that would
(04:22):
self describe as a gamer. That means more Americans are
playing video games than not playing video games, which means
this is now just mainstream entertainment. For a brand not
to get involved with gaming in some way or gamers
is you know, it's a myth and you're you're not
making the same cultural impact that you could be. So
(04:42):
e sports is obviously a huge part of gaming, it's
a growing part of gaming. Um, what kind of what
kind of flasts the same song have for brands who
want to kind of get into the e sports arena?
You know it's the same, it's a it's like not
the same obviously, but it's very similar to traditional sports. Um,
the way to think about it it really is, you know,
there's a there's a broad spectrum of genres in gaming,
(05:05):
so you really have to understand the league's understand the games,
understand the fans. So someone who is a fan of
MBA two K is going to be completely different from
a fan of Overwatch, right, so when you're making a
decision to support one or the other league, that kind
of demographic and psychographic behavioral profile of that fan is
(05:27):
gonna be wildly different. So you have to really understand
the games and then just understand your brand and your
your target audience and where is the match the best
in in you know, those those two kind of audience profiles,
and how do Samsung play in the kind of e
sports space and kind of where do you see that going?
And you said, you mentioned about gaming in general, that
(05:48):
there's a lot of exciting things to come imagine the
sports as part of that roadmap in that thought, so
we're still dipping our toes UM. You know, for us,
we've had a more general approach because we think that
our TV offers an experience. Is that no matter what
type of game you play, you're gonna have a great experience,
whether if it's you know, RPG and graphics rich or
really really fast moving, UM, you know, first person shooter.
(06:10):
I don't think we want to commit to just one UM,
so we've we've had a little bit more of a
general approach on our SSD business. However, UM we have
can you just define that acronym for oh wow, solid
state drive? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just assume you know,
we're talking to gamers. They all know UM. But you know,
it's significantly improved the performance of you know, PC gaming.
(06:32):
We're talking to Grace stool And of Samsung Electronics America
America about gaming. UM five G obviously is it must
be a huge part of where you're thinking about how
all this is going and how people are going to
be getting this content. I am obsessed with five g
I'm so excited about five g Um. So one of
the things that I always talk about is how consumers
are changing. And you know, at the end of the day,
(06:54):
consumers still want all the same things, right. They want,
you know, a good price, they want a good product,
they want convenience. But for me, the biggest, my biggest
observation is how we're defining those things. So your definition
of a good product, and you know, so much of
it is now defined by a good experience, and your
definition of convenience is completely different. And the example I
(07:14):
love to give is like with gaming and Blockbuster. Right,
do you remember when you used to go to Blockbuster
and rent games? I have a hazy memory. Yeah, it
was a reality. And at the time, it was super
convenient that you could go to one place and find
all the games that you wanted and just bring it
home that day and bring it back whenever you wanted.
And then all of a sudden there was game Fly
and Netflix, and then you know, they were delivering games
(07:35):
to your house and you just stick it back in
the little packet and mail it back and then now
they're streaming, right, so you can get games through Steam
now and five G is going to enable that times
a million, right, so access to an unlimited number of games. Bandwidth,
no more bandwidth constraints. Right, So, right now you have
(07:58):
to wait like an hour for your game to download
if you want to play a game, right, imagine that
it's just seconds. And imagine you're looking at a screen.
You're not even connected. Everything is wireless thanks to by
G and you're looking at a screen with all the
games in the world, and it won't take an hour
to download the game. You've never played it, but you're like,
why not, let's just take a second. Right now, there's hesitation, Right,
(08:22):
You look at a game and you know it's going
to take a lot of commitment. It's a commitment, so
you're like, maybe not, I'll just stick to the game
that I love. There's gonna be commendous impact to the industry,
so much more exploration. There's gonna be you know, new
games tried, old games tried. It's it's gonna it's gonna
have a really, really, really great impact on the category
of the industry. Have you personally gotten more into gaming
(08:42):
as you've delved into this space. You know what, I'm
I am not a gamer, but I love gamers. I
love them because they're so passionate, and I love any
consumer that loves what they do. And yeah, I'm yeah,
we're talking before this, we're talking before the interview. You know,
I have young kids and you do too, and I
imagine that the reality for our kids in the games
(09:04):
that they're going to be able to play. Maybe I'll
be able to introduce them to some of my favorite games,
and they'll be able to play games that I could
never even possibly dream of. Yeah. Well, I mean it's
funny because my husband games, um, and we're all already
starting to see a very strong interest from the kids,
Like they are already starting to gravitate towards certain types
of games. I already know what kind of game where
(09:24):
they may turn into. It's funny at such a young
age that you already start seeing that interest. Yeah, And
as a marketer who's obviously getting more into the gaming space,
understanding those different divides is very important. Yeah, I mean
completely different sets of consumers there um gaming. As you
you mentioned in the earlier statistic that I think sevent
Americans are playing games However, gaming has this stereotype of
(09:46):
being a young, white male thing to do. So as
a marketer, how do you look about broadening that and
thinking about diversity as you're going about your work. Yeah,
I mean, I think there's a lot of stereotypes about
gamers in general, like the traditional niche impression of just
a bunch of kids, white male kids or overgrown white
(10:07):
male kids living in their mom's biggest fence in their
thirties basement always comes up, and and it's terrible because
right of people in the United States are actually gaming.
I think we're where we have a tremendous responsibility as
marketers to start appropriately portraying who the gamer is in
(10:28):
our communication or advertising. For the most part, you know,
we like to feature gameplay in our creative and we're
making a concerted effort to say, hey, let's feature more
players and let's make sure that they represent what players
actually look like today, which is a really broad set
of genders, ethnic nation, Like everybody everybody is gaming now. Um,
(10:49):
you used to work at Johnson and Johnson, which seems
like a very far cry from Samsung Electronics America and gaming.
But I wonder are there lessons you learned there that
you apply to your work now. Yeah, I think the
one lesson has always put the consumer first. Always put
the consumer first, and you can't go wrong in your decision.
And that's that's what we do with Samsung and it's
been the guiding the guiding star at the north Star,
(11:10):
Gray Dolan, thank you so much for sharing your north
Star with us, Samsung Electronics America. That's great to be here.
Thank you so much. This podcast is in partnership with
the I Heart Podcast Network
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