Vizio Inc.’s marketing strategy for 2014 is just like its latest ad campaign: “beautifully simple.”
The Irvine-based company, which markets and designs flat TVs and other electronics, is continuing several successful initiatives it started in 2013, including a renewed focus on the movie industry and a boost to its estimated $35 million advertising budget.
It’s also working on the next phase of “Fandemonium,” its online community, which reached 1 billion impressions this month.
The goal is to rally movie fans around its new P-Series Ultra HD Full-Array LED Smart TV collection that allows consumers to stream ultra-high definition—also known as 4K—content, said Lily Knowles, Vizio’s vice president of product marketing.
“We are focusing on the movie fan, because a part of what our ‘Beautifully Simple’ [campaign], of what our brand is focusing on in 2014, is telling the story of why picture quality matters to the entertainment experience, what technology is important in creating that great visual experience, and ultra-HD 4K is part of that story,” she said. “It’s really about celebrating fans who love to watch the movies.”
She said Vizio plans programs to help movie fans engage and learn about ultra-HD, including a voting contest to discover emerging filmmakers who are exploring how to use the technology in their work.
Partnerships
It’s also in the process of “closing important partnerships” with motion picture industry studios and educational institutions to be announced next month, according to Knowles.
The brand’s P-Series has a lot to offer to “content creators, to Hollywood and to directors and cinematographers” who will be able to appreciate “those displays, with high dynamic range of contrast,” she said. “Some of those very important technologies are going to, we believe, change fundamentally how directors and cinematographers frame their shots and how they light and color-correct the final output.”
The “Beautifully Simple” campaign, which David & Goliath in El Segundo created last year, will continue as well, “because of good feedback from consumers,” Knowles said.
Follow-up consumer surveys indicated that perceptions of the Vizio brand “bumped up significantly” thanks to the campaign, scoring well in categories such as technology, the latest features, trust levels and design.
“That campaign was showcasing [Vizio M-Series Smart TVs], but if you look at the overall tone and what the sentiment was carrying out, it was really telling the brand story at the same time,” she said. “It was really saying, ‘Hey, not only are our products smart and so smart that they are easy to use, by association Vizio is also a beautifully simple brand.”
This year’s ads will be made under the “Beautifully Simple” umbrella, Knowles said. They will debut in August and run throughout the next college football season. The campaign will have digital and print components, such as ads in ESPN Magazine, and feature new ultra-HD 4K technology and sound systems.
Fall will also mark the return of Fandemonium for football fans, since the online platform “is something that can really appeal to multiple audiences,” Knowles said, adding that it’s looking for sponsorship opportunities for major college football events.
Sponsored Games
Vizio sponsored the Rose Bowl game and the BCS National Championship game in January. The latter had the third largest audience in cable television history, according to ESPN. The combined sponsorship was valued at $200 million by New York-based Kantar Media.
“In general, we are very pleased,” Knowles said, adding that the attention the brand got reflected in sales.
This year, Fandemonium will also target fans of sports, such as golf, for which picture quality is important to catch the fine points.
“We are looking at other sports where details matter, where extra features you get from ultra-HD help you appreciate a shot that makes it in, how steep the hill is,” she said. “[Golfers] are always looking, ‘Is the grass pointing this way?’ Those are little details that you’ll be able to appreciate with the high resolution TV.”
Knowles declined to discuss marketing budget figures but said they “will go up this year. We will be investing more significantly into social media and into digital marketing than we ever had before. We believe that those are key channels of communication with fans. We want to develop the relationship with our consumers more than pushing messages out.”
The private company, whose biggest competitor is Samsung Electronics Co. in South Korea, was founded in 2002. The Business Journal estimates Vizio had $3.1 billion in annual revenue last year, when it sold more than 6.3 million smart HD TVs.
