[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ldq2tNLRDwA]
Samsung just officially denied any involvement with the “Wake Up” protest held outside of an Australian Apple Store earlier this week.
According to SlashGear, the company stepped forth today and rebuffed any ties to the affair: ”Samsung Electronics Australia has nothing to do with the ‘Wake-Up Campaign’.”
For currently unknown reasons, a puzzling demonstration with anti-Apple cues occurred outside an Apple Store in Sydney April 22. A black bus boasted the phrase “WAKE UP” and a slew of paid picketers with coordinating signs paraded along George Street while chanting, “Wake up!”
The staged fuss accompanied a series of billboards posted around the city, as well as “WAKE UP” written on the bottom of Bondi Ice Bergs’ pool, and a baffling website at wake-up-australia.com.au that features a focal point countdown. The URL is registered to ad agency New Dialogue, which underwent rebranding and now goes by the name “Tongue.”
Meanwhile, Samsung hosted a teaser website last week at tgeltaayehxnx.com (an anagram for “the new galaxy”) that contained a countdown similar to Tongue’s. The South Korea-based manufacturer redirected users to thenextgalaxy.com after the clock ran out last Monday. Samsung placed a video on the new page that assured users its next Galaxy device will “stand out from everyone else,” and then the video panned to a horde of sheep for the closing frame. The ad (below) is a dig at iPhone users, who are often scorned as “iSheep,” due to critics that claim they blindly follow Apple.
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Many assumed the video and flashmob’s timing were beyond chance, so rumors circulated that Samsung arranged the event through Tongue as part of its “iSheep” message. After all, such a campaign would —and did— garner international promotion for its upcoming Galaxy S III smartphone that is scheduled to unveil May 3 in London.
The perpetrators backing the Sydney Apple Store protest remain a secret, including the hidden meaning and obscure intentions behind the perplexing “WAKE UP” campaign. It is worth mentioning that many questioned the circumstances around the blogger, Nate “Blunty3000” Burr, who caught the actual protest on video (atop). SlashGear’s own sister website Android Community even coyly suggested it is a coincidence that Burr was in the “right place at the right time.”
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