Leave It To Apple Bloggers To Give Apple Credit For A Good Samsung Commercial

Only Apple bloggers can find a way to give Apple credit for a good Samsung commercial.

This weekend, Samsung started airing an ad for its new smart watch, the Galaxy Gear. It's really good:

But as MacRumors pointed out, it's similar to Apple's first iPhone commercial, which also pulls in pop culture references throughout history:

It didn't take long for the Apple fans to start howling.

"I'm sure the similarity here is purely coincidental. It just doesn't seem like Samsung to copy Apple," wrote John Gruber of Daring Fireball.

"There is just no shame-or original ideas-in this company at all," wrote Apple evangelist Jim Dalrymple on The Loop.

Except Gruber, Dalrymple, and their cohorts are wrong in this case.

Samsung's ad has an entirely different point than Apple's original iPhone commercial. The original iPhone commercial shows that we've been talking on phones forever, with the kicker being "Hey, we just made this thing we've been using for nearly 100 years a lot better."

Yes, the two commercials pull in clips from pop culture, but the similarities stop there. And this isn't the first time the tactic has been used to sell you something. For example, GE has an excellent series of ads that pull in robots and other tech gizmos from pop culture and the news.

Sorry Apple fans, but your favorite company doesn't have a monopoly on pop culture references.

Samsung's Galaxy Gear ad is about the realization of a mythical device we've spent decades dreaming about, but couldn't make until now. Samsung's kicker is, "Hey, you've been fantasizing about smart watches for years, but we're the first to actually make one."

That's a pretty cool feeling.

When I first saw the Gear ad air during football yesterday, I cracked a smile. It was good. And I did that knowing the Galaxy Gear is a dud of a product that no one should buy. The Gear may be bad, but the marketing is good. Samsung has no one to thank for that but itself. Not Apple.