A three-day meeting that reset a conglomerate
In June 1993, Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee gathered around 200 executives in Frankfurt for a three-day meeting that has since become one of the most cited moments in Korean corporate history.1, 2 The sentence that survived it is short. "If you are to change, change completely," Lee told the room. "I'm not kidding. Change everything except your wife and children."1, 3, 4
What Samsung calls the New Management programme began there.5 The company was profitable, large and, by Lee's assessment, mediocre.2 Samsung built volume. It did not build reputation. The Frankfurt meeting reframed the entire group around a single instruction: quality before quantity, in products, in processes and in the way the company presented itself abroad.1
The identity followed the strategy
The brand change came after the decision rather than announcing it. In 1993 Samsung retired the three-star marks that had carried the company since its founding and adopted a new corporate identity built on the English brand name set inside a blue ellipse.1, 5, 6 The choice was consequential. Until then, Samsung's marks had been drawn for a Korean audience and read as one of many chaebol emblems. The new wordmark was drawn for export.
The name itself carries the earlier symbolism. Samsung means three stars in Korean, chosen by founder Lee Byung-chul in 1938 because he wanted a company that would be, in his words, powerful and everlasting like stars in the sky.5, 7 Those stars appeared in Samsung's logos in various forms for 55 years.5, 6 Removing them in 1993 took away a literal illustration of the name and replaced it with something a global audience could read without translation.
The timing was not accidental. Korean exporters in the early 1990s competed largely on price, and a Korean-language emblem reinforced the perception of a supplier rather than a brand. Setting the name in Latin letters, in a single blue container, gave Samsung a mark that behaved the same way on a shelf in Seoul, a trade show stand in Las Vegas and a shipping container. The identity did not claim quality on its own. It made the quality claim portable.
Samsung has described the ellipse as symbolising the world moving through space, conveying a distinctive image of innovation and change.6 The tilted oval also solved a practical problem. It gave the wordmark a container that worked at the scale of a semiconductor package, a television bezel and a stadium sign, and it gave Samsung a single asset to apply across a group spanning electronics, construction, shipbuilding and financial services.7
What quality looked like in practice
The programme was not confined to design. Samsung reorganised production around defect reduction, and the episodes that followed became part of the corporate folklore. The most repeated took place at the Gumi plant in March 1995.5, 8 Samsung's handset division had rushed a product to market in 1994 with a defect rate of 11.8 percent, and 150,000 faulty phones had accumulated at the factory.8 In front of roughly 2,000 employees, ten workers broke the devices with hammers and the pieces were burned.8 Lee's instruction, as reported at the time, was blunt: "Get rid of defect rates even if it means we shut down."8 Samsung's share of the domestic handset market reached 19 percent by the end of that year.8
The engineering results arrived quickly. In August 1994, a little over a year after the Frankfurt meeting, Samsung developed the world's first 256-megabit DRAM chip, and in 1996 followed it with a 1-gigabit part.1, 6 Memory became the business in which Samsung could credibly claim leadership rather than participation, and that claim gave the new wordmark something to stand for.
Thirty years on
The scale of the change is easiest to read in the group's numbers. Samsung Group's combined market capitalisation rose from 3.1 trillion won in 1993 to 626.6 trillion won, about $481 billion, by 2023.1 Revenue grew from 41 trillion won to 466.8 trillion won over the same period, and operating profit from 490 billion won to 55.6 trillion won.1
The identity set out in Frankfurt has proved similarly durable, though not unchanged. Samsung refined the lettermark in 2005 to improve legibility, adjusting the spacing and height of the letters so that they distribute evenly across the word.9 The company's current brand identity guidance describes the logo simply as the English brand name, sets it in Samsung Blue as PMS 286C, black or white, and makes no mention of the ellipse.9 The oval that defined the 1993 identity has quietly left the core system, while the wordmark it framed remains.
Samsung did not mark the 30th anniversary of the declaration with a public commemoration.1 The company's stated focus in 2023 was chairman Lee Jae-yong's New Samsung agenda, announced in 2021, and its Super Gap strategy in semiconductors and biotechnology.1 The vocabulary has changed. The pattern behind it, a strategic reset decided internally and then made visible through the brand, is the one Frankfurt established.
Written with AI assistance, edited by a human. Find out more about our Use of AI.
1. The Korea Herald, Jo He-rim, "Samsung's iconic Frankfurt declaration marks 30th anniversary", 6 June 2023, for Lee Kun-hee having convened an executive meeting in Frankfurt for three days and having spoken to some 200 company executives, for the quotation as the article gives it in English, "If you are to change, change completely. I'm not kidding. Change everything except your wife and children.", for the declaration marking a shift from quantity-centred management to a focus on quality, for Samsung having introduced a new corporate identity following Lee's call and changed its logo to carry its English name, for the world's first 256 megabit DRAM "a year later" and a 1 gigabit DRAM in 1996 (the article writes "256-megabyte" and "1-gigabyte"; Samsung's own history page, note 6, gives "256-mega" and August 1994), for the combined market capitalisation of the Samsung Group affiliates growing from 3.1 trillion won in 1993 to 626.6 trillion won ($481 billion), revenue from 41 trillion won to 466.8 trillion won and operating profit from 490 billion won to 55.6 trillion won, for Samsung Electronics and its affiliates having no plan to hold a commemorative event for the 30th anniversary, and for Lee Jae-yong's "New Samsung" vision, unveiled in January 2021, under which the company pursues the "Super Gap" strategy in chips and biotech. https://www.koreaherald.com/article/3140834
2. The Asia Business Daily (Asia Economy), Kim Hyewon, "[Reexamining Lee Kun-hee's Leadership (Part 1)] The 1993 'New Management' Declaration That Marked a Milestone in Samsung's History", no date on the page, 27 October 2020 according to its URL, for the meeting held on 7 June 1993 at the Kempinski Hotel in Frankfurt, where Lee gathered about 200 executives and overseas staff, and for Lee's assessment, the basis of the word mediocre, that without change Samsung would "forever remain second or second-and-a-half rate" and that "Even if we do well now, we are only 1.5 rate." Off whitelist and used for corroboration only. https://www.asiae.co.kr/en/article/2020102711283594629
3. The Korea Herald, Shin Ji-hye, "Architect of Samsung's tech revolution, Chairman Lee Kun-hee dies at 78", 25 October 2020, for Lee having convened Samsung Electronics executives in Frankfurt in 1993 to urge a fundamental transformation, and for the line as this article reports it: "Change everything," he said, "except your wife and children." https://www.koreaherald.com/article/2462509
4. Aju Business Daily, Yoon Dong, "[신경영 선언 30주년] "마누라와 자식 빼고 다 바꿔"···이건희의 절박함이 삼성을 바꿨다", 6 June 2023, for the Korean wording of the line the body quotes in English, "마누라와 자식만 빼고 다 바꾸라", and for the meeting on 7 June 1993 at the Kempinski Hotel near Frankfurt with about 200 Samsung executives. No Korean original was found for the two preceding sentences of the English quotation, "If you are to change, change completely. I'm not kidding." Added during the footnote retrofit; off whitelist and used for corroboration only. https://www.ajunews.com/view/20230606152925650
5. Samsung Global Newsroom, "[Infographic] 20 Things You Didn't Know about Samsung", 22 May 2013, for the statements "In Korean, the word Samsung means 'three stars.'" and that the name was chosen by founder Lee Byung-chull "whose vision was for his company to become powerful and everlasting like stars in the sky", for "The three stars remained as the company logo in various forms until 1993 when the current logo was introduced.", for the item headed "New Management", in which Lee Kun Hee, in June 1993, summoned Samsung's executives from around the world to a hotel in Frankfurt and "gave a three day speech", and for the Gumi episode of March 1995, when Lee had his staff assemble "a pile of 150,000 phones and fax machines in a field outside the Gumi factory". https://news.samsung.com/global/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-samsung
6. Samsung Global Newsroom, "History of Samsung (11) Adoption of new Corporate Identity and development of world's first 256-mega DRAM semiconductor: 1993-1997", 27 June 2012, for the new corporate identity programme Samsung introduced in 1993 "in honor of its 55th anniversary", for the company name "now written in English", for the statement "The elliptical logo shape symbolized the world moving through space, conveying a distinctive image of innovation and change.", which settles the correction recorded in retrofit-notes.md, and for "Samsung developed the world's first 256-mega D RAM semiconductor in August 1994." Added during the footnote retrofit because no listed source states what Samsung said the ellipse stands for. https://news.samsung.com/global/history-of-samsung-11-adoption-of-new-corporate-identity-and-development-of-worlds-first-256-mega-dram-semiconductor-1993-1997
7. Wikipedia, "Samsung", consulted on 2 October 2026, for Samsung having been "Founded in 1938 by Lee Byung-chul as a trading company", for the founder's explanation that the Korean hanja Samsung (三星) means three stars, and for the group's activities, which "include construction, consumer electronics, financial services, shipbuilding, and medical services". The article attributes "stability, reliability and corporate social responsibility" to the blue of the logo, not to the ellipse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung
8. KED Global, Hyun-suk Kim, "Why Lee set fire to over 150,000 mobile phones", 26 October 2020, for Samsung Electronics' mobile phone division having rushed its product release in 1994, which raised the defect rate to 11.8%, for the 150,000 defective phones piled up at the Gumi factory in March 1995, for the roughly 2,000 employees who watched 10 employees take hammers to the phones before the broken pieces were set on fire, for Lee's words "Get rid of defect rates even if it means we shut down.", and for the domestic market share of Samsung's wireless phones rising to 19% in 1995. The article is a 2020 retrospective; no Korean original of the quotation was located. https://www.kedglobal.com/lee-kun-hee-s-legacy/newsView/ked202010260003
9. Samsung US, "Samsung Logo | Brand Identity | Samsung US", undated page, consulted on 2 October 2026, for "Our logo is composed of our English brand name, 'Samsung.'", for the lettermark as "the result of refinements made in 2005 to improve the logo's visibility", for the spacing and height of the lettermark designed to "create visual harmony through even distribution of letters", and for the colours Samsung Blue (PMS 286C), black and white. The page does not mention the ellipse. https://www.samsung.com/us/about-us/brand-identity/logo/
