Make Your Marketing Useful, Like Samsung and Charmin†

Take a Small Chunck Out of Those Billion-Dollar Budgets and Help Provide a Free, Helpful Service

Advertising Age, May 26, 2008 — After about half an hour of staring at the space where a plane should've been, we're granted the announcement we knew was coming: The 3:30 p.m. out of LAX is now the 4:50 p.m., which we all know means it's really the 6-something p.m. There's a brief period of eye-rolling before everyone goes back to their business, which in my case means huddling with a dozen other worshippers around the Samsung totem pole to which our BlackBerries and laptops are attached.

If you have the misfortune to run the gauntlet of America's airports with any regularity, you're all too familiar with this scene and may even know the totem I'm referring to. It's an eight-foot, electrical charging station with a little shelf about halfway up its length where devices rest and recharge. It was Samsung that came up with the idea to pay for and install these life savers, hence having its brand name emblazoned on the side.