LG's third year at CES demonstrates "Life's Good"

Bob Perry, VP Sales and Channel Marketing characterized LG's consumer electronic business in this way: "It's the adult toy business.... Consumers are aiming for simplicity. There are two groups of consumers we target: consumers that know technology and have money, and consumers that have money. We are targeting both." With the integration of a two-tuner DVR into its TVs with ATSC tuning, LG eliminates many of the cables and cable boxes needed for watching TV. Many have been saying our moms will go to the store and buy media servers. LG believes that most consumers don't want that type of complexity; they want services built into the products.

LG embraces a two-brand strategy in the US. LG will continue to market itself as a premium brand. For second tier product opportunities, they will continue to use the Zenith brand. Bob noted that LG's belief that "Positioning is everything."

LG announced a wide variety of products at the show. The ones that caught our eyes were the 71-inch plasma display (shown in the photo), the 102-inch (I think -- I couldn't easily tell) XD rear-projection display, and LG's new 700 watt per channel, flat-panel home theater-in-a-box system. And of course, the fact that LG is launching a Blu-ray blue laser drive adds to our view that Blu-ray has the lion's share of the support by manufacturers.

The most intriguing product LG mentioned was its wall-mountable flat HDTV projector. While not slated for US launch yet, it gathered a lot of interest among reporters, especially since it was classified as an Information Technology device, yet is only appropriate for consumers. Hmmm. Perhaps positioning isn't quite everything yet.

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