Video: David Steel, SVP Marketing, Samsung

Samsung, in conjunction with PR agency of record Weber Shandwick, hosted an event today at their Samsung Center in Manhattan. Titled “The Reinvention Economy: Re-casting Communications as a Critical Corporate Innovator,” the panel examined how communications is going beyond traditional functions and evolving to drive corporate innovation, from product development to market research.

PRNewser spoke with David Steel, SVP Marketing at Samsung, before the panel discussion. Steel oversees all North American marketing for Samsung and we spoke a bit about how social media has changed how the company develops and refines products.

“When we hit the ground with a new product, we need real feedback from consumers that there’s real demand, real interest, [to know] what appeals to them,” he said. “So this new paradigm of communications allows us to do that, because we can hear what consumers are saying about our products and technology in essentially real time, what they’re saying to each other as well as what they’re saying back to us as a brand. So a lot of these techniques and tools in social media and online marketing allow us to get consumer input very early in our product development process and then we can reflect that in new products that are coming out. It’s a very powerful new tool for us.”

Steel gave an example of how this feedback cycle affected the launch of Samsung’s Blue-ray offerings.

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