LG Cuts Deal With David Jones For Signature Range
LG is believed to have cut a deal with David Jones for an up-market LG Signature store within a store.
The Korean Company who have won several awards for their Signature Series appliances and TV’s is looking to avoid the likes of Harvey Norman for their Signature Series, instead they are targeting the David Jones consumer who is seen to be a “more discerning” consumer than what Harvey Norman delivers.
According to sources Harvey Norman was offered a store within a store concept and after initially agreeing to a deal changed their mind and demanded only select products.
Recently LG in the USA called in head hunters to find them an experienced, high-energy Channel Marketing Manager to drive messaging, develop channel programs and marketing strategy to support the dynamic growth of the LG Builder Signature Kitchen Suite business division.
At this stage the kitchen suite range is not coming to Australia.
According to several analysts both retailers and brands are going to have to rethink the way in which they go to market with retailers having to concentrate more on service and support for busy consumers than delivering the lowest price.
At LG the Company is currently targeting millennials who are a seen as a highly influential group when it comes to making recommendations on home electronics. But the problem for LG who do not have the same brand clout as a Samsung or Miele they are also notoriously difficult to reach through traditional advertising
LG’s head of home entertainment marketing, Tony Brown, says influencers are a growing component of how the millennial market gets information in the world.
“We wanted to reach and ultimately influence the people that are buying televisions, and we know from research that a highly-influential age group are 20 to 30-year old’s,” Brown told CMO recently. “We also know that you can’t just run a TV commercial these days and expect to get a good effect. It really has to be 360-degree marketing across about 360 channels.”
Brown tasked LG’s public relations agency, Hill & Knowlton, and influencer marketing provider, Hypetap, to come up with a campaign that would use influencers to help reach its audience.
“We briefed Hypetap on what we wanted to be as a brand, and where we were going, and they came back with a long list, which together we shortlisted down to four people and gave them a go,” Brown says.
Four months later it was revealed that LG had achieved an 8.6 per cent engagement rate in the first month of the campaign from these influencers.
“We believe in the products we make and sell, so we need to get that passion across to our influencers.”
That result has been sufficient for Brown to task his agencies with increasing LG’s influencer program through 2018, while tying it more closely into its traditional PR activities.
According to Marketing Director Angus Jones the new David Jones relationship will allow the Company to market to a known audience of consumers who buy more on brand and the quality of a product than price.
“We’ve gone through a phase where manufacturers controlled everything, and then retailers controlled everything, and now we are in the age of the consumer,” Brown says. “And that is why marketing organisations need to shift some of their thinking to address the power of consumer influencers out there.”
