Haier Kicks Off Video Line With DVD Promo
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 3/12/2001
NEW YORK -Haier America Trading is giving its fledgling U.S. color television and DVD sales businesses a boost by joining a national cable television advertising campaign cross-promoting the DVD release of 20th Century Fox's IMAX feature Michael Jordan To the Max.
The spots underscore Haier's DVD players and color televisions, which include 13- and 20-inch screen sizes, and will soon include the China-based company's first 27-inch analog direct-view set with a TrueFlat picture tube.
When it arrives in May at a $599 suggested retail price, the 27-inch set (HTF-27R21) will mark the first in a planned line of Haier TrueFlat sets. Other screen sizes with flat-faced picture tubes to ship later include 20, 24 and 32 inches. The sets include an advanced speaker system, 4:3 and 16:9 picture display processing, and 3-D digital comb filters.
Meanwhile, the company recently started shipping its first DVD-Video player in the United States. Model HD-700 offers component-video outputs, Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound compatibility (with both coax and optical pass-through), 4x picture zooming, 96kHz/4-bit sound DACs and 10-bit video DAC. It sells for $179.99.
Haier marketing director Vincent Cefalu said the Michael Jordan DVD cable TV spots, running through mid-March, are 30 seconds long and supported with a contest awarding a Haier 27-inch flat-screen TV and a DVD player to winners. The contest is offered on the Sportsline.com website.
