According to Asymco's Horace Dediu, Samsung is blowing all the companies away in advertising.
But advertising isn't Samsung's only marketing expense. It also has big, crazy launch parties and promotional discounts.
If you look at Samsung's full marketing expenses, you get a better idea about the incredible amount it cost Samsung to become the world's biggest smartphone company.
As shown in the digram Samsung's Marketing expenses are far, far higher than any of the of the other brands shown. Considering Samsung is one of the largest smart phone companies in the world, large marketing campaigns and promotional parties etc contribute immensely to the success and impression of the brand received by consumers. Considering Coca Cola is such a huge brand and marketed hugely worldwide, yet is still way behind what Samsung is spending, really shows in comparison to other developed brands how huge Samsung's Marketing really is.
I am quite surprised at how large the gap is between Apple and Samsung as i always considered them reasonably close competitors in the smart phone industry.