Upgrade Me Page #3

I mean, it's not only been a digital revolution, it's gone hand in hand with a design revolution

and I think the two are really interlinked.

With the iPod, Apple upped the design stakes and brought a new simplicity to music players.

Going digital freed the industry to play with the look and feel of devices.

But it's not just the thirty-something male readers of Stuff magazine

who have bought the latest iPods.

Women, kids, even old fogey dads like me have sported the famous white earphone.

While Apple were the established cool outsider brand,

I wonder if the iPod's success was also down to its advertising.

'Robin Wight is a leading ad man who spent years researching advertising psychology.'

Robin, when I think of iPod advertising, this is the advert I think of. The silhouette campaign.

Why was this so important?

These are brilliant. First of all, you got this signalling of the white wire.

A big part of this young people's market

is you're trying to signal your success...

about, basically, genetic fitness.

Through having an iPod they are saying, "I am good breeding stock."

You are exactly doing that. At an unconscious level and sometimes

at a conscious level you are saying that you can afford this... display activity

and you're actually signalling peacock-tail behaviour and signalling genetic fitness.

It is the mating game.

How big do you think my iPod is?

Your iPod? I am sure you have the very latest one.

A small one may be more status than a big one, at least in iPods.

Is it is crude as "I want to be that person?"

One of the points is you don't see who the person is so you could be that person.

You can identify with it.

It's concept of the incomplete proposition.

It's called the Zygonic Effect.

If you have something that's incomplete, you complete the circle, which your brain will do,

it's more engaging.

In your opinion, with an upgraded product, is that product a response to our need for an upgraded product

- or is it simply the company's need to keep on selling these things?

- Well, it's a mixture of the two.

The company's need to keep selling things wouldn't work if there wasn't this underlying need.

People need, for the function and signalling power, the upgrades. It drives human progress.

You should be happy. If humans didn't want to upgrade,

we'd probably still be in the Middle Ages.

Apple and clever advertising psychology certainly helped grab music out of the Middle Ages.

But it's interesting today the biggest global player

in consumer electronics is not in the United States, or even in Japan.

They're here, in South Korea,

at the cutting edge of the digital revolution.

I've just peeled myself out of the aeroplane after a ten-hour flight.

The sun's coming up on a new country for me.

It's very exciting. And I'm heading to Gadget HQ, in Gadget City, in Gadget Country.

So I feel as if I'm right in the epicentre

of the technological revolution, and it's exciting.

South Korea is one of the world's most advanced digital societies.

The capital city Seoul is home to Samsung,

today the world's largest consumer electronics company.

Their global sales have overtaken Sony's, and competitors like Toshiba and Panasonic.

This is Samsung's swanky new headquarters.

The company make an extraordinary diverse range of gadgets,

with products for every conceivable -

and some inconceivable - occasions.

In 2007, their global consumer electronics sales reached a staggering 105 billion.

Inside the HQ is Samsung D'light,

a glistening multimedia display promoting the creative philosophy of the company.

My guide is Seon Mi Jin.

Watch your step. Samsung D'light has three floors,

and now we are going to the first floor.

On the first floor, there are three kinds of genre -

image, text and sound.

Image, text and sound.

And it's also the kinds of marketing, and...

'The atmosphere is post-postmodern,

'but one you can touch and play with!'

An other-worldly high-tech palace of the senses.

What have we got here?

Oh, yes, er, now you see our MP3 player.

- Oh, they're MP3 players, are they?

- Yeah.

- Right. It looks very light.

- Yes. Would you like to pick up?

- Oh, yes. - It's really light.

- It weighs nothing, does it?

So it's a sort of pebble-shaped iPod type thing?

Ah, yes, that could be. Yes.

Why would Samsung design something in the shape of a pebble?

It's designed like a pebble because it is easy to grip

and easy to hold,

and really a small one, yeah.

- But it's sort of beautiful as well, isn't it?

- Yes, yes.

Is that the idea, to appeal to people's sense of beauty?

Sure, yeah, so it's really popular for young people, especially,

and we also have a pebble design for DVD players.

Because a lot of the original gadgets were quite ugly, weren't they, but they, but they were useful.

But it seems now almost as if they're becoming jewellery, an ornament.

Ah, yeah, yeah. It could be also one idea with these MP3 players.

Yeah.

Walking around the exhibition is a calm and inviting experience.

It's design that wants us to engage and be at one with it.

Samsung's business is to create the products of tomorrow and to anticipate our desires.

Everything is lightweight and pleasing to the eye.

What's very clear, looking at these products, is that function is no longer a primary concern.

We all know that these things work.

It's about fashion now, it's about design, it's about decoration, it's about beauty.

Who knows - it could even be about art.

'Six floors above the showroom, Samsung's mobile phone design team

'are brainstorming next season's phones.

'Each year they're responsible for designing dozens of new models.'

'Surprisingly, they use literary notions to inspire their discussion with enigmatic team leader Eliot.

'Ideas like stories, emotion and identity.'

'The biggest trend in consumer electronics is convergence,

'gadgets that can do a multitude of things.

'The team's latest design is an upmarket touch-screen phone

'combined with camera, MP3 player and internet access.'

Actually designing something is like a journey

for finding kind of...a new story,

new kind of emotions for the people.

So they wanna express their lifestyle with this, you know,

very stylish phone, especially the back.

The back side is more important,

you know, it's getting more important these days.

So, through the back of the phone, because that's projecting towards other people,

- you're signalling to other people what sort of person you are?

- That's right. That's right.

- And what sort of person would

- I - be if I had this phone?

Would I be cool? Smart?

- Both, I think.

- Sexy?

- Absolutely.

- And next year will there be a better phone than this?

Absolutely. Because, er, design trend is changing and people's emotion is also changing.

Does Korea have a huge appetite for new phones?

It's kind of test bed for new design, new technologies.

So, every time we introduce the new phones, people really like that.

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