New York –
kicked off the next leg
of its Cinema 3D “Take The 3D TV Challenge” campaign at New York’s Grand
Central Station Thursday and Friday as the first stop on a new three-city tour
that will also include Chicago and Los Angeles.
The effort is part
of a Cinema 3D consumer TV challenge campaign that began earlier this year in Houston,
where consumers allegedly overwhelmingly selected LG’s passive 3D glasses-based
TVs when matched against similarly sized active-shutter 3D TVs from Samsung and
Sony.
LG backed the
announcement of that initial effort with ads in major daily newspapers that
took jabs at both Sony’s and Samsung’s “active flicker” 3DTV technologies.
LG spokesmen said
a similar newspaper ad is planned to appear in USA Today on Friday in
conjunction with the Grand Central Station face-off.
Throughout the
day, LG representatives challenged commuters and visitors to the landmark
building to sit down and vote on which 3DTV picture looked better to them – an
LG Cinema 3D model or similarly sized competitor’s model using active-shutter
glasses technology.
Challenge
moderators quickly explained the benefits of the passive-glasses 3D approach
used in the LG Cinema 3D TVs compared with pricier powered active-shutter
glasses used in the competitive products.
TV brands were
concealed during the test, although an LG spokesperson said that a Samsung
active-shutter 3DTV was used for the New York City promotional study.
Predictably, early
voting indicated a heavy preference for the LG product.
Visitors to the
demonstration were also encouraged to take a short survey on 3DTV technology
and to enter a drawing for an LG Cinema 3D TV through a Facebook page devoted
to the TV model line.
“I think the most
important thing we’re doing here is keeping the visibility up on 3D and step-up
products in our industry,” said Jay Vandenbree, LG Electronics home
entertainment sales and marketing senior VP. “Everything we’ve done has been to
get consumers to talk about it, think about it, and to go find out about it. If
we can get them to do that and see what their options are in the television
business, they might make that choice to spend their discretionary income in
our industry.”
Earlier in the
day, a Reuters report out of South Korea, citing an unnamed LG official, said
LG has unofficially cut its forecast for global TV sales by 20 percent, pointing
to an unexpectedly long continuation of sluggish economic conditions,
particularly in the United States and Europe.
Similar reductions
in TV sales estimates were also recently reported for Sony and Samsung.
According to the
Reuters story, LG’s global TV sales volume now may only reach around 32 million
units this year, after the company had targeted sales of 40 million flat-screen
TV units for 2011 earlier in the year.
James Fishler, LG
Electronics go-to-market strategy senior VP, said using the TV Challenge
promotions and other vehicles this year in support of Cinema 3D should help the
brand “over achieve our expectations for the technology this year,” stopping
short of declaring LG the likely market share leader of passive glasses 3D sets
in the U.S., with Vizio, Toshiba and others also entering the fray.
Most of those
other passive-3D glasses TV-set makers use LG 3D LCD panels, however.
