July/August 2018 ertonline.co.uk


In retail, the job is to take those customers who have heard the buzzwords, but perhaps don’t understand what HDR and 4K means, and to show them content Mike Somerset, TV marketing manager, Sony


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We’re at a serious crossroads with retail in general.


On a very cautionary note to manufacturers – the tra- ditional way to bring new technology into the market is to have it on display in stores and to get passionate salespeople to demonstrate it and to be enthusiastic to the consumer about it. I don’t see how you do that online. Yes, you can post blogs and videos etc, but a blog doesn’t really do justice to how it looks, how it sounds and how it will benefit your life. Manufacturers can follow the Apple model and


open up their own stores or, they can take a con- scious decision to try to support the sectors of the industry that will actually do the best for your product.


MS: Customers often start their journey online look- ing at price, reviews and ratings. At some point in the customer journey, however, the majority will then go into a store to see it. You cannot see the picture quality of TV online, which is why we [manufacturers] have to do as good a job as we possibly can at store level to really grab them with exciting content and enable high-street retailers to compete with online. There’s all sorts of things we need to do, and


are already doing, to explain to a customer why it’s worth buying the product in-store. Whether it’s ensuring the retailer carries our stock, so that they can go home with it there and then, free installation, after-sales support, the different perks and benefits you can only get from a retailer. We do recognise these issues and it’s part of our job, as a manufacturer, to find a way to get people into stores and encourage them to make their pur- chase there.


Q: How important is on-screen promotion of


UHD by broadcasters? JT: It’s extremely important, because it’s driving the mes- sage out there and it seems there’s still a lot of education to be done. People know the buz-


zwords 4K and HDR, but they don’t necessarily know where they can get the con- tent that supports it. We, as manufacturers, do a job in this ourselves by educating our sales ambassadors, so that they can pass on that knowledge to consumers.


MS: Every time consumers hear these familiar, well- known content suppliers like the BBC, Amazon and Netflix etc, introducing 4K, it makes such a differ- ence. The format is growing and that’s really only because content is getting out there. It gives people a huge confidence in buying the product. It wasn’t that long ago that we were saying the


same thing about HD – there were only a couple of channels in the beginning, so people were ques- tioning why they’d get it, but now it’s commonplace. The path is there and, if customers are given the right direction, they can see why a 4K TV is a great investment.


Q: What do Retra members want in terms of UHD content? Do they want more UHD content or a dedicated UHD channel? HS: I’d say the answer is yes to both. Being bru- tally honest, there are still people out there that


We’re at a serious crossroads with retail. Unless we address the fact that retailers don’t actually make any money [on TVs], then we will lose high-street dealers Howard Saycell, chief executive, Retra


still only watch terrestrial TV and there is always the danger that you demonstrate something in 4K in-store and the consumer goes home with their nice new purchase, but ends up disappointed with it, because they aren’t able to watch it in the way it was demonstrated. We have to be honest as an industry that things


are moving apace. One of the problems we have is that, we used to sell things as ‘future-proof’. Our members tend to have relationships with customers and, therefore, want to be honest with the consumer and give them the best advice possible. So that’s my plea to the manufacturers, the broad- casters and technologists, and everybody else that’s driving this momentum of technology forward at this rate – it’s great and it’s wonderful and it will more than likely speed up before it slows down, but let’s just be honest about the fact that, at that moment in time, the model the consumer buys is a good pur- chase – but it might not be forever, because of the rate at which technology is changing.


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