Philips said the design move would take its brand to new places. Design is the next frontier, said Michael Gay, vp-marketing at Philips Consumer Electronics North America in Atlanta. We ve got ease of use, picture. Now it s down to how it looks on the wall. The company that can pull all of that together is the company that wins. As a result, Philips LCD media buy will include some unexpected places, such as home design books and Web sites.

It s the reason to go to both Architectural Digest and sports magazines, said Gay. Internet connectivity, designed to pull in Web content, will continue to grow. In fact, just about everything trotted out at CES came with connectivity. Samsung s Internet adapter allows users to import and store movies on a hard drive. Most of Sony s new Bravia models include a Digital Media Extender, which can add modules like the Bravia Internet video links.

Most manufacturers have already formed their alliances in terms of what can be downloaded. Sharp has aligned with NBC, for example, and LG with Netflix. Panasonic has formed a partnership with Hollywood director Brett Ratner to create content for the company. And its Living in high definition campaign, launched in October via Kirshenbaum Bond Partners, New York, will expand this year, said Bass. Teaser ads broke this month in advance of a larger campaign slated for this spring.

Digital penetration is going to move from 35% to 65%, said Bass. What we see here is everyone offering a broader assortment, everyone looking for a piece of that pie. For Samsung, which is still clinging tenaciously to the title of top dog in LCD TV sales, it means a sort of TV anywhere approach to branding. In October, the Korean CE giant snagged two marketers from outside the category.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 7:33 am and is filed under Digital cameras. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.