Philips takes on rivals in blind test campaign

NEW DELHI: Philips India has rolled out its "Dare to Compare" campaign for its flat colour television, basing creative on a series of blind tests in which it out-performed its two key rivals. Sony and Samsung, which were used in the Philips' exercisefor comparison purposes, have reacted angrily to the tests, labelling it a farce. Inspired by cola marketers, the blind tests pitted Philips' high-end Matchline RF set, priced at US$2,100, against Sony's Vega DRC and Samsung's Plano. The Vega at $2,530 and the Plano at $1,680 were chosen for the blind tests as both are the only 29-inch TV sets in the 100Hz segment. As part of its drive to improve its less than five per cent share of India's TV market, the tests were carried out in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta, Indore and Ahmedabad, and involved more than 2,500 consumers. Participating dealers were asked to camouflage the three brands with a special black cover, leaving only the screen visible for consumers to evaluate picture quality. Consumers were queried on three measures - motion smoothness, picture stability and sound quality. Philips claimed it outperformed Samsung and Sony by a wide margin on all three measures, achieving scores of more than 90 per cent for motion smoothness and picture stability and close to 80 per cent for sound quality. It was the robustness of the scores which prompted Philips to try a comparison-based campaign, which was one of the last pieces of work executed by Euro RSCG, its former agency before the mid-year realignment to Hindustan Thompson Associates. The Delhi segment of the campaign mentioned that the blind tests were conducted at five outlets across the city in which 88 out of a 100 consumers chose Philips. Sony and Samsung have labelled the campaign a farce. Ravinder Zutshi, Samsung India's vice-president of sales, said: "The results were predetermined in favour of Philips." He also felt that consumers should have been allowed to change settings with a remote. Sony India managing director, Teruo shii, added: "The campaign is one-sided and there is no element of fairness." Philips has defended its campaign, saying it maintained the integrity and independence of the tests by putting ACNielsen in charge. "They are questioning the integrity of Philips. They are even questioning the authenticity of ACNielsen, which has arranged everything independently," said Philips general manager for consumer and trade marketing, Rupam Ganguly.

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