Branding at Samsung also began relatively late. Around 1990, chairman Kun-Hee Lee ordered 100 or so top managers to come to the U.S. with him. He took his subordinates to a shopping mall, where Samsung products were literally gathering dust sitting in the back of elcetronics stores. Then he took out his handkershief and proceeded to wipe the dust off his company’s products; the managers followed. The experience was traumatic, but help Samsung’s top management understand the value of brand. Korean policies had nothing to do with any of this, not to mention the fact that Korean activist policies essentially ceased to exist after 1980, following the fall of the military government.