Dive Brief:

• Samsung’s reputation has improved in time for the release of the Galaxy S8 phone Friday, according to YouGov's BrandIndex brand perception tracking. That’s a big turnaround from Samsung’s status in the minds of consumers plunging to a 10-year low following the Galaxy Note 7 recall. 
• In the YouGov BrandIndex measurement of brand perception, Samsung currently matches Apple with a 19. Scores span -100 to 100 with zero being a neutral position. A score of 19 means 19% more people reported they were positive than negative about Apple and Samsung. 
• YouGov points out Samsung has yet to fully mend from the Note 7 crisis in September. The company’s score is still three to six points behind where it was before the crisis. To gauge consumer attitudes toward Samsung, 30,000 adults were interviewed from Jan. 1 of last year through April 18 of this year.

Dive Insight:

YouGov BrandIndex’s latest consumer perception analysis demonstrates that a product defect doesn’t have to be a complete reputation killer and provides countless lessons for other brands enduring recalls. Stephan Shakespeare, cofounder of YouGov, underscored Samsung’s “quick and comprehensive” response was critical to its reputation rebound. And he noted the favorable shift in opinions of Samsung was driven by the general population, not by Samsung customers, and that satisfaction with Samsung products hasn’t changed despite the Note 7 overheating problem. “This suggests that positive personal experience can trump even the most negative of headlines,” wrote Shakespeare in City A.M.

Shakespeare was confident Samsung can head into the launch of the Galaxy S8 with confidence. Samsung seems to have plenty to be optimistic about beyond its reputation rally. The electronics company has reported that pre-sales of S8 are outpacing pre-sales of its predecessor S7 introduced last March. Around 60 million S8 phones are expected to sell this year compared to 48 million S7 phones sold last year, per TheStreet. Reviews of the S8 have largely been glowing, and PC World even declared it’s the best Android phone consumers can buy.