the BIG interview
especially given the challenges of a fast- moving market. “If there is ever a time when a consumer could get confused about TV technology, it’s now,” says David. “I don’t condone the OLED, QLED, ULED battle. How the majority of consumers are meant to demystify that on the shop floor of multiples is going to be a challenge. For us, the challenge is keeping up with the number of promoters that are put into that channel. We have our own promoters going out there – we would prefer to try and improve the quality level of the staff in those multiple retailers but we find ourselves having to invest our time so that our brand development team, who are still focused on good training in the independent channel, now find themselves training promoters in the multiples rather than sales staff. “The benefit for us is that we’re backing
the real deal, OLED. It’ll be a question of us making sure the sales people can explain the real benefits of that technology, which includes ultimate blacks, and we’re able once again to explain the benefits in picture quality that we’ve developed. Because we were the market leader in plasma, and it’s a similar screen technology and one which we’ve got an unbelievable level of competence in, that is a big advantage for us in 2017.” David continues: “The OLED market is
absolutely going to grow. No question. The success of the first generation products, such as our own premium price model, the CZ952, the reaction was incredible in terms of acceptance of picture quality. We managed to get reference status on plasma, reference status on LED and then reference status on OLED for that model. The market has grown at a rate of knots. Support for the technology is very strong, and that in turn will drive growth.” With OLED TVs set to retail at reasonably
premium price points, convincing consumers of the benefits of the technology will be key. “The challenge the industry has got at the moment is of course the exchange rate, and component costs,” David expands. “Those increased prices generally should play into the independents’ hands, because they’ll be engaging with customers who will be parting
with more money, at which point the care and attention that goes into a sale is more important. With inflation biting this year, the amount of disposable income may decrease and people will be thinking carefully – it’s going to be a more considered purchase cycle, and independents can take advantage of that. “The online experience has improved across the board. The content that you get from the internet is excellent, but as everyone’s content improves, for the indies as well, the differentiation between a good and weak retailer will in the end iron out, so it will come back to, ‘What can I offer at the shop front, what can I offer in terms of service?’ It’s a good chance for the indies now.”
‘Make an engaging experience’ There are plenty of categories to be enthused by and optimistic about, David believes. “Healthy eating is still a key consumer trend,”
he says. “That’s why we’ve focused on those types of features to make preparing fresh food easier and to reduce wastage within our small domestic appliance and major domestic appliance line-ups. People are becoming aware that what you eat is very much aligned to your ongoing health. The small kitchen appliance market is performing incredibly well and has been consistently growing over the last few years. We’re in a good place in terms of the brand perception, because we’ve worked hard to really satisfy consumer requirements.” There are also opportunities to demonstrate products live. David adds: “We started to do public exhibitions to promote our Experience Fresh brand this year, so we were at the Ideal Home Exhibition at Christmas, and in March for three weeks, refining our demos for healthy juices.” In audio, the relaunch of the Technics brand has added momentum to the audio market for Panasonic. “We’re shipping some awesome kit from
Technics this year,” David says. “There’s going to be a whole product portfolio coming through for Technics that’s very exciting.” Again, there is a focus on consumers getting the best of the product. “I worked for a couple of years in Germany as head of
The return of Technics 1210s is set to boost an already swiftly growing turntable market, Panasonic believes
The OLED market is set for continued growth, with Panasonic’s plasma heritage standing the brand in good stead for the black performances of OLED screens
March 2017
the communication platform, and one of the projects that I piloted was the Technics Tracks website,” David explains. “We’re introducing high resolution audio products to the market, so we want to become a destination for high resolution music as well to complement the hardware. That music service focuses just on 16 bit and above and it’s all FLAC. It’s the biggest collection of high resolution audio tracks in the world now. “We’ve driven the AV market via screen and vision technology for a long time and we’ve allowed thin TV design and portability for music to dictate the direction of product development. Now we’ve got to the point where we’ve got super slim and portable, now it’s time to get back to listening to music properly. MP3 was always a compromise. It served an amazing purpose in giving us all the opportunity to have our music collection on our phone. But people are now returning to wanting to listen to something that doesn’t sound like a cardboard box.” He adds: “The audio market is a great market because it’s very stable overall, there are just trends that happen within it. There’s always something happening within that market where you can satisfy a new way in which people want to listen.” Panasonic’s most recent answer to that has been the All Connected range of speakers. “Our platform is the most versatile streaming platform on the market because we’re not just supporting WiFi, we’re supporting Bluetooth, restreaming, so you can steam YouTube, for example, through our system which you can’t on others,” David says. Taking advantage of trends and making the best of the market is a skill that retailers can utilise to boost the bottom line. “Some retailers are having a great time of it at the moment, and it’s typically the ones that are doing something different, being creative and inspiring consumers,” David notes. “It’s all about service, and making an engaging experience for the customer when they come in. It’ll be a little bit of a challenging year, but there will be opportunities for good retail to shine through.”
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