EXCLUSIVE: Hisense Dumps PR Company After Just 18 Months
Hisense the Chinese appliance and TV Company who has snapped up the Toshiba TV brand because of problems with their own brand in big markets such as the USA and Europe has dumped their PR Company Filtered Media after just 18 months.
The Chinese Company whose reputation in Australia has been challenged after they initially claimed that they were “not” buying marketshare has appointed DEC PR as their new agency of choice.
Mark Jones who describes himself as “The Chief Story Teller” at Filtered Media has not explained why the Company has been dumped by the Chinese TV maker 18 months after being appointed and especially as Hisense Marketing Director Andre Iannuzzi has been telling media recently that his TV market share has increased during the past 18 months.
Hisense Australia who has a reputation of churning through marketing suppliers called for expressions of interest several months ago. After being asked to pitch one PR Company who made the trip South never even got a call back to tell them whether they had been successful.
Hisense Marketing Director Andre Iannuzzi right.
This is not unusual for Hisense Marketing Director Andre Iannuzzi who has a reputation for not returning calls.
Globally Hisense is struggling to be a major player in the TV market under their own name, hence the move to buy the Toshiba TV brand name.
The Company who licensed the Sharp name, because US consumers had switched off buying Hisense TV’s because they were seen as cheap bottom end TV’s is now in a legal fight with Sharp who are now asking for their name back claiming that Hisense as soon as they got access to the Sharp brand name, lowered its manufacturing quality and started shipping sub-standard televisions.
Sharp, now owned by Taiwan-based Foxconn, said that it was terminating the trademark licensing deal.
Since then Hisense has acquired the right to the Toshiba brand name for US$114M. They are also negotiating with the current licensees of the brand to buy Toshiba branded TV’s in an effort to stop the Toshiba TV image being trashed by these Companies.
