Mikkel Høgh

Coding the web since 1999

09 Oct 2016

The worst kind of publicity

Flying to and from DrupalCon Dublin, I noticed something new in the preflight briefing. It’s been widely reported already, but it was the first time I heard it in person, and it made me wonder if this is not in fact the worst kind of publicity possible.

The message was something to the effect of:

Please note that the use of Samsung Note 7 phones is not allowed on this flight.

…and going on a bit about how said device needed to be completely powered off.

The Danish charter vacation magnate Simon Spies is often (in Denmark, at least) quoted as saying “Bad publicity is better than no publicity”, but he was probably not imagining that kind of bad publicity.

Having your potential customers reminded repetitively that your product is dangerous, and they could be injured or have their house burned down by it is probably worse than the general brand recognition upside that comes from publicity.

But who knows, this could all be some elaborate marketing scheme on Samsung’s part.