Samsung has found a Tim Cook willing to endorse the Galaxy Z Fold 8 — just not the one formerly in charge of Apple. The company's New Zealand campaign stars Tim Cook of Palmerston North, a man who shares the former Apple CEO's name and bears a striking resemblance to him.
The stunt arrived just after Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone, on September 9. That timing gives the joke a sharper edge: Apple is entering a category Samsung has spent years developing, and Samsung is making sure buyers remember who got there first.
What looks at first like a simple celebrity-name gag is really part of a broader fight over who gets to define the next phase of premium smartphones. Samsung has years of foldable hardware behind it; Apple is arriving with the brand power and ecosystem reach to make the category more mainstream. The ad plays directly into that tension.
Who Samsung's Tim Cook really is
The man at the center of the campaign introduces himself as "Tim Cook. From Palmy," immediately inviting the comparison with Apple's former CEO. In an official Samsung Members post, a Samsung community manager identifies him as Tim Cook of Palmerston North and says he is introducing the Galaxy Z Fold8.
The ad leans heavily into the resemblance. Cook appears in glasses and understated clothing while praising the Fold8 in deliberately Apple-like product-launch language before signing off with his full Palmerston North identity. The staging is restrained enough to resemble the kind of polished launch video viewers would associate with Apple, but the joke never depends on pretending he is actually the same person.
Samsung presents Cook as a Galaxy Fold owner, although the campaign itself is the evidence offered for that claim. The Verge's report on the ad similarly identifies him as a New Zealand man who happens to share the former Apple executive's name and appearance.
That distinction matters because the commercial is still advertising, not independent testing. It can make a memorable case for Samsung's foldable experience, but it cannot tell buyers how the Fold8 will fare in long-term hinge durability, display wear, camera performance, battery life, or a direct comparison with Apple's first foldable.
Apple's foldable debut gives Samsung an opening
Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo on September 9, confirming a 7.6-inch inner display, 5.4-inch outer display, A20 Pro chip, and an iOS 27 interface adapted for the folding design. Apple CEO John Ternus characterized the Duo as the biggest transformation of the iPhone since the original.
Samsung, however, has been selling foldables for years. The company introduced its first Galaxy Fold in 2019, with the device reaching consumers later that year. Samsung described it at the time as the beginning of a new mobile category in its original Galaxy Fold launch update.
That history gives Samsung a legitimate experience advantage in one narrow sense: it has had multiple product generations to refine hinges, screen proportions, software behavior, and the basic ergonomics of turning a phone into a small tablet. It also gives the company something Apple does not yet have with Duo — years of customer feedback from people actually living with foldables every day.
The Galaxy Z Fold8 is the latest expression of that accumulated experience. According to Samsung's July 22 Fold8 announcement, the phone pairs a 5.5-inch cover screen with a 7.6-inch inner display, weighs 201 grams, and carries a 4,800mAh battery. The inner screen opens to a 4:3 aspect ratio intended to give video, games, reading, browsing, and multitasking more room.
None of that automatically makes the Fold8 the better device. A longer history in the category does not settle questions about which phone feels better in the hand, which hinge ages more gracefully, which camera system performs more consistently, or which operating system makes better use of the extra screen space.
Those are precisely the areas where the marketing stops and the real comparison begins.
The Fold8 and iPhone Duo are only about $100 apart
Price makes the rivalry even more interesting.
Samsung lists the 256GB Galaxy Z Fold8 at a regular U.S. price of $1,899.99 before temporary discounts, trade-ins, and other promotions on its Galaxy Z Fold8 store page.
The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 in the U.S. with 256GB of storage. Apple says preorders begin October 16, with availability starting October 23 in more than 70 countries and regions.
That leaves only about $100 between their standard starting prices. For anyone already considering a phone near the $2,000 mark, the choice is unlikely to come down to price alone. Ecosystem, software preferences, multitasking, cameras, battery life, durability, and how each design fits into daily use will matter far more than the difference at checkout.
Their displays are close on paper as well. Both use 7.6-inch inner screens, while the Fold8 has a 5.5-inch cover display and the Duo uses a 5.4-inch outer display. That similarity makes the eventual side-by-side comparison more compelling because the two companies are not approaching foldables from completely different size classes.
The more meaningful differences will emerge from how those screens, hinges, cameras, operating systems, and multitasking features behave in practice. Samsung has had time to mature its foldable software around years of Galaxy Z hardware, while Apple is bringing its own interpretation of iOS to the format for the first time.
That is also where Samsung's Tim Cook commercial reaches its limit. The ad is an effective jab at Apple's arrival in foldables, but it is not evidence that seven years of experience automatically translate into the better phone.
Samsung's joke has a real competitive backdrop
Samsung did not need Apple's Tim Cook for the campaign to work. Finding another Tim Cook just as Apple prepares to put its first foldable on sale simply gave the company a convenient way to turn a product launch into a reminder of its own history.
The broader point is more important than the gag. Foldables are no longer a niche where Samsung can define the conversation largely on its own. Apple's entry puts two of the world's most influential smartphone brands into direct competition over the same premium form factor, at nearly the same starting price and with inner displays of the same size.
Buyers now have confirmed specifications, regular starting prices, and launch information for both phones. What remains unsettled is the part that matters once the marketing fades: how they compare after the iPhone Duo reaches customers on October 23 and both devices can be tested under the same conditions.
Samsung's ad gets attention because the name is funny. It works because the timing is real.
Apple has officially joined the foldable-phone race, and Samsung wants everyone to remember that it has been competing in it since 2019.
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