Samsung Test Drive

Earlier this month the ever so progressive fourth largest carrier in the country T-Mobile, unveiled a new marketing idea aimed to get customers to try out their network. In their test drive program, potential customers can test drive an iPhone 5S for a 7 day period no questions asked. The company hopes that people will be thrilled with the speed and simplicity of T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network that after the test drive they will convert to actual customers.

Now Samsung has announced a similar program that they are going to test out in five U.S. cities.

Adage.com reports that starting next month, customers in 5 major US cities can visit a Samsung pop-up shop at their local Best Buy and try out most of Samsung’s mobile products for a 21 day test drive. The customer will need to leave a $350 refundable deposit at the pop-up shop but as long as the merchandise is returned. The devices in the program are the Samsung Galaxy S5, the Gear Smart Watch and the Gear Fit. There’s no word on whether they will extend this program to other devices.

Samsung will let the customers who want to take a 21 day test drive pick the carrier they use for that period and they’ll pick up the data tab.

The program got an unofficial kick off back in May when they started letting customers at their Manhatten pop-up store. In July they will add Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Santa Clara California.

While Samsung isn’t suffering the least, their explosive growth has slowed down a bit. That’s ‘sparked a huge increase in marketing in the US where they’ve moved up 6 spots to become the 16th top US advertiser, according to adage.com.

There won’t be any kind of tv or radio advertising to promote the test drive program. It will be up to Samsung employees at their pop-up stores to tell customers about it.

“Our trial program offers consumers the convenience and accessibility to explore and test Samsung Galaxy products in their own environment, enabling them to experience the incredible things they can do with our products and make educated decisions prior to purchase,” Melissa McNutt senior manager of Samsung’s experimental marketing division said in a statement.

Apple is expected to launch the next generation of iPhone in September. It’s supposed to be a pretty significant change in hardware and will be released with the feature packed iOS 8. Samsung is hoping to get in front of customers who may be holding out for that launch.

Are you going to test drive a Samsung device? Let us know in the comments.