Half of the TV audience mistook Samsung Galaxy Tab for iPad in ads

Only 16 percent of viewers observing Samsung's TV commercials realized it was a Samsung product, according to an internal report the company commissioned, and which has been submitted as evidence in its trial with Apple.

"Given Apple's already strong position in the tablet category," Samsung's report stated, "it is critical that attribution of [Galaxy] Tab communications improve and that communication works to differentiate Tab from iPad."

The report also highlighted that "only 11 percent of customers are aware of and can link the Galaxy Tab back to Samsung, while 65% of consumers are aware and can like the iPad back to Apple."

Samsung's survey also noted that primary reason consumers were reporting for why they weren't considering the Galaxy Tab was "lack of awareness of the product," and noted that "TV advertising has had minimal impact primarily because of misattribution."

Piggybacking on Apple's ads

Apple's top marketing executive Phil Schiller had earlier noted in his trial testimony the difficulty in reaching customers with memorable messages in TV and billboard advertising because of the limited attention devoted to advertising and brief appearance marketing has to make an impression.

"Customers only get a glimpse of the product," Schiller noted, explaining that Apple had spent $149.5 million marketing the iPad in 2010 alone.

"The advertisement has to give you a sense of how it might work, and what it might do for you before you have a chance to head to the store and try it yourself," Schiller said. The ads “create a reason that you might want a tablet in your life."

Schiller noted “now when someone comes up with a product that copies that design and copies that marketing, then customers can get confused on whose product is whose," describing such copying as "stealing all the value we’ve created.”