In a press briefing earlier this week at New York City's Grand Central Terminal to kick off Panasonic's 15-city "Experience Amazing" tour, top sales and marketing executives from the company laid out their approach to the HDTV market for 2011. While 3D TV is still vital to their overall HDTV story (and the 3D feature is becoming pervasive in Panasonic's TV line), Panasonic wants to bring home the message that overall picture quality is most important in a consumer's TV buying decision. Whether it's traditional TV shows, video and computer games, movies, sports or 3D, a high performance HDTV will enhance a customer's enjoyment of any type of content, more so than features or a sleek industrial design.
Panasonic also sees the opportunity to emphasize the online content offerings available in their new VIERA Connect platform. A majority of the company's 2011 plasma and LCD television models feature VIERA Connect, which includes access to a strong sampling of online streaming services -- Netflix, Amazon VOD, Pandora and more -- plus Panasonic's new VIERA Connect apps market. With a publically available software development kit (SDK), now the worldwide community of application developers can create custom apps for Panasonic TVs. During the briefing, Panasonic reps showed off two of their newest apps -- MLB.tv and NBA Gametime -- which are now live in VIERA Connect. Panasonic is extending online content access even to many of its entry-level sets with a streamlined set of pre-defined apps and content streaming options they are calling "Easy IPTV." This is a basic bundle of the essential streaming services (including Netflix) for those who may not need the full app suite.
VP of Sales Jim Sanduski went into an overview of the television product lines for 2011 while VP of Marketing Vic Carlson gave us a sneak peak at some upcoming TV ads designed to bring brand awareness to Panasonic's VIERA television brand. According to Sanduski, the overall North American TV market in 2010 comprised 35 million units of which 20% were "connected" TVs and only about 2% were 3D-enabled. By 2015, Panasonic expects the total market to grow to 37 million units with 70% of these connected models and up to 40% 3D-capable. "Consumers are moving from a passive viewing environment to a more active one and Panasonic is leading the way for a more interactive and engaging television experience," said Sanduski.
And speaking of active vs. passive, when asked about the recent move by some competitors away from the active glasses 3D system to passive glasses 3D -- and specifically a recent LG TV ad that exaggerates the inconvenience of powered 3D glasses -- Sanduski explained that the tradeoff for the lighter cheaper passive glasses is a sacrifice in picture quality which Panasonic is not willing to make. "Passive 3D systems split the resolution to each eye, resulting in a less detailed, lower quality image." But Mr. Carlson was quick to jump in that Panasonic does not intend to slam the competition in their ads, only to highlight the picture quality benefits of active 3D technology, and of VIERA televisions in general, and let the consumer decide which looks best. "We have found that negative ads do not resonate with consumers, so we plan to steer clear of those."
In 2010, Panasonic offered seven 3D-capable models, all plasmas sized 42 inches and larger. In 2011, Panasonic is including 3D capabilities in fourteen models -- 60 % of their total SKUs -- including two LCD models in their DT series, sized at 32 and 37 inches. These are targeted at the gaming market, while the larger plasma sets in the ST, GT and VT series are targeted more at the living room, home theater and video enthusiast markets.
Several of Panasonic's 2011 VIERA plasma HDTV models including the ST30 and GT30 series 3D-enabled TVs are beginning to ship now, with the top of the line VT30 series coming later this spring. Panasonic had on hand many of their 2011 televisions and home entertainment products in the booth, organized in different functional areas in order to appeal to different interests of booth visitors: a pod for movie viewing, one for gaming, another for sports. And the Panasonic HDTVs on display did look impressive with bright colorful and vivid imagery that stood out, no matter what the content or application. A 3D clip of Avatar on the ST30 series looked particularly impressive with a brighter more colorful image in 3D mode than I've normally seen on the Panasonic plasmas particularly considering its placement in the challenging lighting environment of Grand Central Terminal. Our own Ian White has one of these in for review so we'll be finding out what he thinks of the new line soon.
Panasonic's new series of ads began hitting on TV and online media this week and will continue through 2011.
