Samsung's glass house.

Like a lot of you, I saw Samsung's brilliant "Uncrush" response to Apple's "Crush" ad a week or so ago. (I know it was brilliant, because their press release that was reprinted in all the ad blogs said it was.)

I was so inspired by that beautiful line at the end of the spot, "Creativity cannot be crushed", that I immediately went to Samsung's website to order one of their hand-crafted guitars, or maybe a fountain pen to start that novel I'd been thinking about writing.

Well, lo and behold, I learned that Samsung doesn't make them.

Nor do they sell pianos, oil paints, trumpets, or dusty leather-bound original editions of Paradise Lost. Turns out Samsung makes the exact same stuff Apple does (just not as well, or as successfully.) And it made me think of that old adage:

Brands living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

If you're going to call out Apple for "crushing creativity" then you better have a solid reputation for supporting creativity, or better yet, some real evidence. And also, if you are going to get all touchy-feely with your message about the importance of acoustic creation and artistic expression, don't end the commercial by selling me your own less popular, and thicker, tablet. Like, d'uh.

I think if anyone owes us an apology, it's Samsung.

Because they took this big, brave stand for creativity, and backed it up with nothing.

As my little journey to their website and Wikipedia page revealed, they don't stand for creativity any more than Apple does. And arguably far less so than Apple who have a 40 year reputation for doing incredibly creative work. Not to mention making incredibly beautiful and innovative devices, apps, and (Ted Lasso anyone?)TV shows.

They broke the cardinal rule of advertising (and boxing, hockey, and mixed martial arts): if you're going to stage a fight, make it an entertaining one. No one wants to watch a brand just hurl insults at the other in public.

If you're going to publicly go toe-to-toe with your competition, there has to be something in it for the millions of us watching you slug it out from the sidelines. A smile. Or a "ha!". Or even a "Oh damn! Look what they did!"

Companies go after each other all the time, and I am here for all of it, as long as it entertains me in the process (and ideally, has some real truth to it).

Like this gem from the height of the Pepsi Vs. Coke cola wars of the 90s, when #2 Pepsi understood that if they were going to go after #1 Coke, they could be as savage as they wanted, if they were savagely funny at the same time.

Pepsi knew they couldn't sneer their way into our hearts and wallets. They had to charm their way in, even as they were sticking a knife into the ribs of their competitor as we were laughing.

This campaign from ALLY Financial which called out the terrible way that banks treat their customers is a master class in how to fight in public.

It basically calls out banks for robbing us all blind, but rather than get all self- righteous with it, they get all hilarious with it. The look on the young girl's face when the banker in the suit says: "You didn't ask"? She should've won an Emmy.

But as funny as this ad is, it tells me what ALLY is doing better than the banks ("Our 'sleeping money alerts' alert you to when your money could be working harder and you could be making more.") It tells me what they're doing differently.

They put meat and funny on the bone.

Of course, no one threw more funny or more meat at you than Apple's iconic "Mac Vs. PC" work from the mid-2000's. If you have nothing better to do on a Tuesday in May, here are all 66 of them. It's the best 40 minutes you'll ever spend in advertising.

Each spot is a jab - to the kidneys, the chin, the nose - of their opponent, slowly but surely wearing down the viewer's allegiance to PC with every perfectly placed shot.

This is how the smartest brands fight.

With charm and with facts.