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HP A “Basket Case” 30,000 Jobs Slashed As PC Sales Slump

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Hewlett-Packard who has been described as a” technology basket case” that has lost direction, is set to slash another 25,000 to 30,000 jobs in an effort to cut costs.

 

In Australia HP has been bleeding losses, as they struggle

to hold onto contracts, globally their PC division is also suffering, when

Lenovo launched back in November the Company reacted to the the new consumer

market entrant by slashing the price of their PC’s.

 

A major supplier to the Commonwealth Bank whose systems

crashed last week leaving millions without access to credit cards or able to

access their accounts the Company will shortly spit into two divisions.

 

About 10 percent of the jobs at the current HP, will be

eliminated, company officials said early this morning.

 

A year ago, Meg Whitman the CEO of HP who was in Australia

recently to meet with Commonwealth Bank executives announced she was cutting

Hewlett-Packard in two. This morning, she detailed job cuts expected at the

company.

 

“We’re looking forward to operating as two industry-leading

companies,” said Ms. Whitman, HP’s chief executive, speaking at a meeting of

financial analysts. “You’ll see us doing more pruning of businesses that don’t

fit.”

 

Ms. Whitman became the head of HP in 2011. As part of a

restructuring announced in 2012, 54,000 jobs have been cut at the company. The

new cuts are on top of that.

 

In November, Ms. Whitman will become the chief executive of

HP Enterprise, or HPE, which will sell things like computer servers, data

storage, software and services to business.

 

The other company, called HP Inc., will focus on printers

and personal computers. Ms. Whitman has said the division will enable both

businesses to react faster to changing markets.

 

The expected job cuts will result in a charge of about

$US2.7 billion, beginning in the fourth quarter.

 

“We’ve done a significant amount of work over the past

few years to take costs out and simplify processes and these final actions will

eliminate the need for any future corporate restructuring,” Chief

Executive Meg Whitman said.

 

The total job cuts planned by the company as part of

Whitman’s multi-year restructuring plan was 55,000 as of October last year. HP

had more than 300,000 employees as of Oct. 31, 2014.

 

In the latest third quarter HP’s revenue from personal

computer and printer businesses, its largest, fell 11.5 percent. Enterprise services

division sales dropped 11 percent, while revenue at the enterprise group rose 2

percent.

 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is expected to have more than

$US50 billion in annual revenue and report adjusted profit of $US1.85 to

$US1.95 per share in 2016, HP said on Tuesday.

 

The business is expected to report free cash flow of $US2.0

billion to $US2.2 billion in 2016, at least half of which is expected to be

returned through dividends and share buybacks.

Aldi Starting To Hurt Appliance Retailers Bigger Stores Planned

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Every week Aldi is shifting tens of thousands of appliances and consumer electronic goods, sales that are being stripped from the likes of The Good Guy’s, Bing Lee, Betta Electrical and smaller appliance retailers say industry executives.

The emergence of Aldi as a retail powerhouse is not only having an impact on Coles and Woolworths but appliance and CE retailers, distributors of appliances and brands such as Sunbeam, Breville and Delonghi said one senior executive. 

Also impacted are distributors who for decades have supplied the mass retailers with branded and house brand appliances.

Peter Hammerman the CEO of Seconds World said both distributors and retailers are under pressure from Aldi, he said that the quality of their house brand appliances is “terrific” and I know that their presence it is being felt in the industry” he said.

He added “What we find is that in the weeks that Aldi roll out consumer electronics and appliance specials sales drop”.

A senior manager at The Good Guys store in NSW said “What is worrying is that consumers are buying from Aldi stores and finding that the quality is excellent, they then go and tell their teenage children who have moved out of home or friends and they in turn are shopping at Aldi”. 

“What is coming from Aldi is another 100 plus stores in WA and South Australia, they are also expanding their presence in the Eastern States, the bigger they get the more appliances and consumer electronic goods they will sell and this will hurt a lot of retailers especially smaller retail chains”.  

Hammerman said “The quality of appliances coming out of China overall is very good, branded products from the likes of Sunbeam and Breville are made in the same factory as the Aldi appliances. I recently took a Breville and a Chinese Tiffany sandwich product home, they both delivered the same functions, the Breville product was $79 and the Tiffany $49, and ironically the Tiffany product was better”. He said.

A Harvey Norman franchisee attending the Harvey Norman Conference in Melbourne said “There is no doubt that Aldi is having an impact. The downside is that the Company is set to significantly expand their stores across Australia and this will cause further problems for appliance manufacturers”. 
“Since Aldi came into the market we have expanded our range of house brand appliances and they are selling well however we have not in some case been able to match Aldi prices”. 

The big winners are not only Aldi but distributors such as Tempo and Euro Centra which is owned by German Company Wunsche Group. 

This week Aldi is offering a 50″ TV from Temp for $529 with over 15,000 set to sell this week.

They are also offering a bread maker for $79 and a rotisserie oven for $79.99. A Stirling dishwasher from Tempo is selling for $299, a similar featured product from The Good Guys is selling for $699. 

Citigroup analyst Craig Woolford said that one area of concern is the floor size of Aldi stores. 

Currently the average is 1400 square metres which he said restricted the volume or size of appliance products that Aldi could range. 

He said that Aldi is currently trialling new concept stores in Victoria and New South Wales that were significantly larger than their current stores.

New information supplied to a Senate Inquiry into tax payments in Australia reveals that Aldi Australia makes more profit on each dollar of sales than its much larger rival Coles, Woolworths, Masters and BigW and has more scope to cut prices in the event of a prolonged price war with mass retailers. 

According to detailed accounts provided by Aldi to the Senate tax avoidance inquiry, the discounter earned a pre-tax profit margin of 5.2 per cent on sales of $5 billion in 2013.

Brokers believe Aldi’s healthy profit margins provide the company with scope for further growth and room to cut prices amid escalating price competition.

“The financials for Aldi confirm both its success and its room for further growth in Australia,” said Woolford, who expects Aldi to continue to gain market share from Woolworths and Coles, placing increasing pressure on their margins.

“These numbers suggest Aldi’s operating margins in Australia are very healthy compared with the rest of the world and may be boosted by significant sales of high margin general merchandise,” Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Simotas told Fairfax Media. 
“This provides the group with headroom for price investment if needed,” he said. “However, given the momentum, we do not believe it is needed at this stage.”

Aldi’s submission suggests that it paid $83 million income tax on pre-tax profits of $261 million in 2013 – an income tax rate of 31.8 per cent and $67 million in income tax on earnings of $232 million in 2012  –  a tax rate of 28.8 per cent.

About 1 per cent of its merchandise and services expenditure is made to international related parties, the company said.

Banned “Dell Sucks” Advertising Revealed

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SmartOffice News has obtained copies of a banned advertising campain developed by Sun Microsystems that claims that “Dell Sucks”.

A controversial advertising campaign that has already been banned by the Wall Street Journal in the USA could soon be running in Australia. Developed by Sun Microsystems for the launch of the Sun Fire X2100, X4100, and X4200 64 bit X86 servers one of the proposed advertisements claims that “Benchmarks Show That Dell Sucks”.

Paul O Connor the Marketing Manager for Sun Microsystems in Australia said, “We are not launching these servers until the end of the month however we are considering using the US creative in Australia. It will be interesting to see if they will get a run”. In the US a Sun Microsystems executive said “business publications like the Wall Street Journal have refused to run our bold ad concepts because the headlines were thought too controversial. At Sun, we’re the radical engineers that build “ass-whoopin” technology – we’re not Miss Manners and we never want to be. We ask all you contrarians out there to e-mail us your own provocative ad headlines: my-headline@sun.com.”

Sun is claiming a technology world record for the new range of servers.  They claim that following testing by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) a non-profit corporation formed to establish, maintain benchmarks the Sun Fire X2100 server has set a new world record based on the on SPECjbb2005 benchmark, which is a follow on to the popular SPEC JBB2000 suite. The Sun Fire X2100 server posted single processor world-record result of 16,070 business operations per second (bops) using Solaris 10 operating system (OS). Since the benchmark stresses the implementation of the Java Virtual Machine, as well as the performance of the OS, it was used to demonstrate that Java Hotspot Server Virtual Machine can deliver outstanding results and optimised performance regardless of the underlying OS.

Identical server configuration was used to conduct two more SPECjbb2005 tests using the same version of the virtual machine. The first test was run under MS Windows 2003 Server OS and produced the score of 16,053 bops and the second test used SuSe Linux Enterprise Server 9 OS and got the score of 15,434 bops. Java HotSpot once again proved to be a stellar performer, when used in combination with top-performing x64 servers from Sun.


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LG Philips set to sell shares

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Philips & LG are set to sell as much as US$3 billion dollars worth of share in the worlds largest LCD manufacturing operation. The move comes as Philips struggles in the Lifestyle Technology market.

Struggling electronics group Philips and Korean powerhouse LG Electronics are close to selling as much as $3 billion of their stock in the LG Philips LCD Company which is the world’s largest maker of liquid-crystal display. Shares in the company surged after the news was leaked. In Australia Philips is struggling to gain market share in the lifestyle technology market and during the past 12 months the company has slashed advertising and marketing activities while trying to hang on to retail distribution relationships.

Analysts are tipping that LG Electronics may sell a stake of about 10 percent when a restriction on sales ends in July, Park Hyeong an investor relations manager said today. The Seoul-based Company and Amsterdam-based Philips scrapped plans to sell shares in a $1 billion LG.Philips initial public offering last July. They each hold a 44.5 percent stake and agreed to keep equal ownership. “It’s become easier for them to sell their stakes in the joint venture as the prospects for the LCD market are improving,” said Chung Jae Yeol, an analyst at Good Morning Shinhan Securities Co. in Seoul. “Each company wants to sell the 10 percent stake they couldn’t sell at last year’s IPO.”

LG.Philips shares surged 39 percent in the past year as market researcher DisplaySearch said shipments of LCDs used in flat-panel computer monitors and televisions rose at a faster- than-expected pace to a record in the first quarter. LG Electronics plans to increase spending by 40 percent to $3.5 billion this year, while Philips is selling stakes in companies including Vivendi Universal SA to fund acquisitions.

Philips Chief Executive Gerard Kleisterlee, 58, sold stakes in Vivendi and ASML Holding recently NV as it prepares for acquisitions in medical systems and health-care appliances, industries typically less sensitive to economic swings than the semiconductor and electronics businesses.

Shares of Philips, Europe’s biggest maker of televisions and coffee machines, had their biggest decline in two years on June 15 after it said demand in Europe for its consumer electronics is slowing this quarter. In the US market the company has failed to make a profit in the consumer technology market for more than 15 years.

LG.Philips shares today fell as much as 3.4 percent. Lee Bang Su, LG Philips spokesman, declined to comment on the plans of shareholders. He said each of the two firms will hold at least a 30 percent stake for at least three years.

LG Electronics, South Korea’s second-largest electronics maker after Samsung, said in January it plans to spend 1.7 trillion won (1.7 billion) this year expanding plants and other facilities and 1.8 trillion won on research and development.

Chief executive Kim Ssang Su, 60, is building plants from Poland to India as the company seeks to increase handset sales by as much as 50 percent in 2005. The Seoul-based company had an 86 percent decline in first- quarter net income after the LCD venture posted a loss and a stronger won eroded the value of its exports. In Australia LG is slashing the cost of its products

LG.Philips said in April an oversupply of LCDs that caused the company’s first loss in two years will ease this quarter and demand will meet supply in the next three months.

Expansion by Chief Executive Koo Bon Joon, 53, and his rivals in the $35 billion LCD industry had led to an oversupply which drove first-quarter prices down 41 percent from a year earlier. The company had a first-quarter loss of 79 billion won, compared with profit of 628 billion won a year earlier.

Hewlett-Packard Co., the world’s second-largest maker of personal computers, in June agreed to purchase $5 billion of flat- panel screens for notebook and desktop computers, becoming LG.Philips LCD’s biggest customer.

The U.S. Company’s commitment is the latest sign that demand for personal computers may be recovering. LG.Philips, which overtook Samsung Electronics in the latest quarter as the world’s top maker of LCDs, is spending $4.6 billion on its factories this year.

First-quarter shipments of LCDs measuring at least 10 inches diagonally at LG.Philips rose 13 percent from the fourth quarter to 9.5 million units, DisplaySearch said May 27.

Industry shipments rose 34 percent from a year earlier to 42.9 million units after a 34 percent decline in prices spurred demand, DisplaySearch said. Industry sales fell 12 percent from a year ago to $8.1 billion, it said.

Optus Set To Be Pushed To #3 Slot After TPG Gets Voters Nod To Takeover iiNet

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TPG is set to become Australia’s second largest ISP after Telstra after iiNet shareholders have approved a $1.56 billion takeover by the Sydney based Company.

At a shareholder meeting in Perth this morning the TPG

takeover offer won the votes, with 100.6 million in favour and 5.2 million

against, 93% per cent of proxies were in favour of the deal.

The deal went ahead despite several people voicing their

objection to the proposed takeover which will see Optus relegated into the #3

slot in Australia.

TPG will now become a telecommunications powerhouse with 1.7

million broadband subscribers and the power to reshape the Australian internet

market.

This places it behind Telstra’s 3 million accounts and ahead

of Singtel-Optus’ 1.03 million users with M2 Group a distant fourth.

Objections to the takeover came from Merlon Capital’s Hamish

Carlisle and iiNet’s founder Michael Malone along with several major

institutional shareholders including BT Investment Management, the3 original

offer was based on $1.4 billion all-cash bid that was revealed back in March.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who is

still investigating the deal is set to deliver their verdict on August 20th

with insiders tipping a green light for the deal

Fairfax Media said that once approval is given both parties

will then immediately call for a court hearing to ratify the merger and

finalise the deal.

 IiNet chair Michael

Smith had warned that any move to reject the deal would most likely result in

the company’s share price collapsing.

The Australian newspaper said that the Australian

Competition & Consumer Commission has been studying the impact the deal

could have on the competitive landscape of the $40 billion a year telecoms

sector.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said he was aware of the criticisms

about the proposed deal from some segments of the telco market, but he said the

ACCC would not rush into handing down its decision before its scheduled release

date.

“We are cognisant of commercial pressures out there, but

this is a big deal and it will permanently change the landscape so we have to

fulfil our duties and assess it probably,” Mr Sims said.

Dick Smith Sales Up 7.5%

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Days after announcing a move into appliances Dick Smith has announced that sales grew 7.5% in the last financial year,from $1,319.7m in 2015 vs 2014 $1,227.6m. Comp sales only grew 1% while EBITDA profits were up 7.4% to $79.8M.

Dick Smith CEO Nick Aboud said that sales had been impacted by an intentional reduction in unsupported promotions, patchy trading conditions and one less trading day in the important ‘tax-time’ June sales period.

The Company like JB Hi Fi is still struggling in New Zealand with Aboud claiming that Australia continues to stand out, achieving 21.9% EBITDA growth for the year and 30.1% EBITDA growth in the second half, resulting in an Australian EBIT margin of 5.5% for the year.”

New Zealand’s gross margin was 23.5% of sales, reflecting a more competitive market and increased promotional activity, particularly in 1H 2015.

Aboud said that the cost of doing business had decreasing 32bp to 18.7% of sales in 2015. 

Abboud said “We are pleased to have delivered another solid underlying profit performance in this our second year as a listed company”.
 
The Directors have declared a fully franked 5.0 cents per share final dividend, to be paid on 30 September 2015. Total dividends declared in 2015 of 12 cents per share, represents approximately 65% of 2015 NPAT before restructuring costs, which is consistent with the Board’s guidance of a 60-70% payout range.

Dick Smith icreased stock levels of private label products which now represent 12.5% of sales, the Company said that they are looking to achieve 15% of all sales as house branded products.

The Company also said that they now have nearly 2,000,000 members of their Mates Rates Club. 

Click to enlarge.Dick Smith now has 393 stores however this could be impacted by an exit from David Jones Stores.


More to follow.

JB Hi Fi Expands Board With Addition Of Experienced Retail Executive

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The CEO of JB Hi Fi Richard Murray has announced an expanded board for the mass retailer who last week announced record profits and increased sales.

The new board appointee is former Just Group operations manager and Peter Alexander sleepwear business chief executive Wai Tang. 

Last week JB Hi-Fi reported a net profit of nearly $137 million for the 12 months to the end of June, up more than 6.3 per cent on a year ago.

Sales grew by 4.8 per cent to $3.65 billion, with both figures exceeding analyst expectations.

Comparable sales, removing the impact of the five new JB Hi-Fi stores that opened during the year, were up 2.9 per cent.

Ms Tang who brings a wealth of expertise to the JB Hi Fi board was most recently general manager of business development for Pacific Brands and a current director of property group Federation Centres — will begin the non-executive role on September 14.


New JB Hi Fi board appointee Ms Tang


Mr King, who was chairman between May 2006 and September 2007, will retire after the annual general meeting on October 29, the company said in a statement to the ASX. 

The board has appointed Ms Tang to the board as an additional appointee ahead of the annual meeting, when she will stand for election. 

JB Hi-Fi chairman Greg Richards said Ms Tang would bring “a wealth of retail industry experience at both a senior executive and board level.

Ms Tang was also the founder of the Happy Lab gourmet confectionary business and is also a non-executive director of Kikki K and the Melbourne Festival. 

Her past board positions include non-executive directorships with Specialty Fashion Group and the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Mr Richards said Mr King had made a “significant contribution” to the business over more than a decade.

“His experience, expertise and advice have been of great value to the business as it has gone from strength to strength over the past 11 years,” he said.

 JB Hi-Fi said last week that they are is expecting even stronger sales growth in the coming year.

“We are pleased with our start to the financial year,” said chief executive Richard Murray.

“July trading has been solid … Key growth categories included computers, telco and home appliances.”

The directors did not comment about the entry of Dick Smith into the appliance market however they did say that JB Hi Fi Home is where the sales growth is going to come from in the future. 

Another four JB Hi-Fi Home stores opened last year, taking the total number of locations dedicated to white goods to 43.

The company says it will also be adding small household appliances to 14 of its traditional stores by November.

“We see our continued expansion into home appliances and, ultimately, the connected home as a significant opportunity for JB in the future,” said Mr Murray.

The proportion of sales online also continued to grow, from 2.2 per cent of total sales in financial year 2014 to 2.4 per cent in financial year 2015.

That reflected online sales growth of nearly 17 per cent in the past year.

EMC Moves Further Into SMB Market

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EMC have finally consolidated a hardware software solution for SMB organisations following the purchase last year of Dantz.

EMC have introduced a new line of Insignia storage hardware and software that enable small and medium businesses of up to 20 employees to store, manage, protect, and share business information.

The EMC Insignia products are designed specifically to address SMB’s needs spanning critical information management and storage issues. Low cost the EMC Insignia products have beeneveloped to work individually, together, and with third-party software and hardware.

 In October 2004, EMC acquired Dantz Development who developed the Retrospect backup and recovery software. Since then the Company has combined the extensive SMB market knowledge acquired through Dantz with EMC’s expertise in information management and storage to create the Insignia product line.

Joe Tucci, Chairman, President, and CEO of EMC, said, “Small and medium businesses are faced with the same challenges as our enterprise customers – explosive information growth, the need to improve productivity and lower costs, and a requirement for simplicity. EMC Insignia brings EMC expertise in these areas to a new and adjacent market at appropriate price points. Our new solution enable SMBs to focus on growing their businesses rather than expending unnecessary effort to store, manage, protect, and share their information.”

Larry Zulch, Vice President and General Manager, EMC Insignia, and former CEO and co-founder of Dantz Development  will manage the EMC Insignia business. The EMC Insignia line includes the following new hardware and software products:

EMC CLARiiON AX Series disk arrays enable SMBs to consolidate and share storage efficiently among multiple computers and capitalise on the advantages of backup to disk. The combination of EMC networked storage for fibre channel or iSCSI delivers easy-to-use, highly reliable data storage at an affordable price.

EMC Storage Administrator for Exchange SMB Edition information management software works with the EMC CLARiiON AX series to simplify management of Microsoft Exchange Server data, provide fast recovery from an Exchange server failure, and make migration to Exchange Server 2003 a straightforward and streamlined process achievable in just a few hours in many cases.

EMC Retrospect gives SMBs a simple but powerful way to protect servers, 24×7 applications, desktops, and notebooks. The backup and recovery software is renowned for its ease of use, self-adjusting backup operations, accurate point-in-time restores, simplified onsite and offsite media management, and encryption of backup media with government-certified AES.

EMC RepliStor SMB Edition guards SMB’s vital information against hardware failure or site-wide disaster. The software provides easy-to-manage replication of data between two Windows computers locally or remotely across the Internet and maintains a continuously updated copy.

EMC VisualSRM SMB Edition helps businesses stay ahead of information growth and rein in costs while meeting storage needs. This storage resource management software presents a consolidated view of a company’s storage and hosts automated policies to manage it.

EMC eRoom SMB Edition brings efficiency to how employees, partners, and suppliers work together. The collaboration software provides a browser-accessed, highly secure collaborative workspace to share information, manage projects, and deliver higher-quality products and services.

“We’re seeing the IT needs of small and medium businesses mirroring those of large enterprises, but on a different scale,” said Ray Boggs, VP of SMB Research at IDC. “SMBs just don’t have the financial and IT resources to deploy the same comprehensive approaches to storage. Small and mid-size firms definitely prefer suppliers that can provide comprehensive solutions, but they also like the option of adding capabilities a la carte as needed. The EMC Insignia line of hardware and software products offers SMBs the flexibility of a complete portfolio of capabilities that work together and can be put into place when the time is right.”

Pricing and Availability
The CLARiiON AX100/i, Storage Administrator for Exchange SMB Edition, and Retrospect are available immediately from authorised EMC resellers and EMC Velocity SMB channel partners. RepliStor SMB Edition, VisualSRM SMB Edition, and eRoom SMB Edition will be available in Q1 ’06. Pricing for the CLARiiON AX100/i starts at AU$8289 / NZ$9028, Storage Administrator for Exchange SMB Edition costs AU$3006 / NZ$3274, RepliStor SMB Edition costs AU$1500 / NZ$1634 per node, VisualSRM SMB Edition starts at AU$1500 / NZ$1634, eRoom SMB Edition starts at AU$1500 / NZ$1634 for 10 users, and Retrospect starts at AU$601 / NZ$655. Available in ANZ from April 1, 2006.

Weather Resistant LCD TV

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Sanyo is set to role out a weather resistant LCD TV. Set to go on sale in the UK first Sanyo say it’s ideal for soaking up warm pommy beer and the odd tear as England get booted out of the World Cup.

The World Cup’s looming – and if you have the idea of sitting outside and watching the action, or are a pub who wants to entertain customers outside the answer is this weather-resistant, flat panel LCD TV from Sanyo – claimed to be first of it’s kind in the world. They say its great for spilt beer and the tears of Poms as they mourn yet another failure to Australia in the World Cup.

The 32″ panel is suited to both interior and exterior use and can withstand a range of weather conditions, plus harsh environments, such as dusty or humid conditions. Picture sharpness comes courtesy of the high-resolution LCD panel with high brightness level, high contrast ratio and a 176 degree viewing angle.

Aimed mainly at the corporate market with an eye on filling beer gardens and barbecues, the weather-resistant TV should be on the market in time for the World Cup. No price available as yet.

LG Scarlet TV Launch More C Grade Than A grade

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COMMENT: There are A grade celebrity launches and C grade celebrity launches but the event held last night in Sydney for the new LG Scarlet LCD TV was definitely a C grade launch attended by B grade celebrities and those paid to attend which included actress Natassia Malthe who is best known for her appearances in B grade movie flicks such as Sex & Death, Blood Suckers, and Alone in The Dark.
Also making a quick appearance were members of the Sharks NRL football team who just happen to be sponsored by LG the makers of the new Scarlet LCD TV and a host of reality TV rejects who appeared quite happy sipping warm pink champagne.


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Unknown models parade on a catwalk


In a desperate attempt to reverse their declining position in the LCD TV market LG, under the direction of Warren Kim the former national merchandising manager for Telstra’s Digital, Data, IT and Fixed Line business the Korean Company is spending over $100 million dollars in an attempt to take market share away from Sony, Samsung and Panasonic in the flat screen TV market.

LG’s strategy however is flawed. Rather than be evolutionary like Sony Samsung and Panasonic LG has chosen to be revolutionary. Their strategy is wrapped around the launch of a bright red backed LCD TV called Scarlet.

Talk to any automotive marketing manager and they will tell you that red cars do not sell and even worse is their resale value.  But to convince consumers to buy a red backed TV which in 2 years time will look so dated is a massive risk.
 

In an attempt to jack up interest in their new Scarlet TV LG in their wise wisdom decided on a global tease campaign  the company made readers and TV viewers believe that a new movie starring Norwegian model and actress Natassia Scarlet Malthe and produced by David Nutter ? of the hit show “The Sopranos” ? was in the making.

From billboards and bus shelter posters to online banners, Malthe has made public appearances at film premiers around the world including last night in Sydney in support of her fictitious role, while the ad copy offered no hint of LG. Also in toe was Director David Nutter who between them they are believed to be netting in excess of $15M dollars.

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Graham Cunningham LG sales Spruikes Scarlet TV

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LG sales boss spruiks Scarlet


Not making a show at the local Scarlet TV launch was Aussie actors Gary Sweet or former Home and Away star Sharni Vinson who appear in the tease trailer alongside Natassia Scarlet Malthe. Also missing was recently appointed LG Marketing Director David Brand who gave the event a pass in favour of LG marketing events in New York and Paris.

“To spend money without letting people know about our brand is really risky. But that’s the punch line of this campaign. It will change the rules of the game,” Lee Kwan-sup, vice president of LG’s Digital Display Global Brand Marketing Team, said, adding his company can’t match its bigger rivals on media spending.

“What we really want is to increase our brand recognition. Strengthening consumers’ emotional attachment to that brand is the key to long-term success,” Lee said.
 


The only problem is that the new Scarlet LCD TV is very ordinary up against some tough new offerings from Samsung, Panasonic and Sony the current market leader in the TV market.

Rather than be evolutionary LG is banking on being revolutionary and like the big budget tease flick the TV lacks any substance above and beyond what LG has offered in LCD TV’s in the past. This is the same Company that 3 years ago rolled out the Internet fridge which at the time they said would be a big hit. Today I cannot find one retailer stocking the fridge let alone a consumer owning one.