There’s no substitute for hands-on experience.
That’s why Panasonic North America is rolling out a small convoy of demo trucks full of high-definition video and photo gear intended to give consumers a close-up, high-touch experience of their high-tech goods.
But the company is pairing that tour with an interesting social experiment: choosing 30 families and giving them a suite of networked products worth $20,000, primarily to study how using these things affects the way they interact with each other and with their neighbors.
The truck-tour is sending four custom-built rigs around the country to stops at large retails outlets, college and pro sports events, state fairs and the like. The trucks carry interactive walk-though displays of high-definition electronics environments, including a 103-inch plasma TV Panasonic maintains is the world’s largest. Visitors will get loaner LUMIX digital cameras and HD camcorders to capture images on SD Memory Cards. They can then insert those cards and link those camcorders to the TVs to see their photo and video work in high definition. The tour runs through January 2008.
The microsite, www.livinginHD.com, maps the trucks’ schedule and offers driving directions. A virtual tour of the mobile display offers tools that simulate features such as the 18x zoom on the LUMIX and the technical differences between plasma and LCD TV technology. Users can also upload a photo of their rooms to see how a flat-screen plasma TV would look mounted on the walls.
The social-experiment portion of the “Living in High Definition” campaign may touch fewer lives but should make Panasonic smarter about its wares.
Over the course of the next six months, Panasonic will select 30 families to receive a lineup of its electronics and will ask them to use those items to complete a series of creative challenges. The families will be chosen from a group who submitted essays outlining the innovative ways they would use the products to improve their lives together. Task number one for the first four families selected: “Make Your Dad Cry — in a Good Way.”
Interestingly, Panasonic has no plans to incorporate the families’ efforts into any marketing.
The company’s real aim is to increase its own understanding of how its products change lives.
“The DNA of this company is very much about customer insights,” says Bob Greenberg, brand marketing vice president for Panasonic North America.
The site itself will be promoted in traditional channels, and visitors will be able to see the families’ responses to the various challenges. They can also view the families’ lives before receiving their snazzy gadgets and the installation and training they received.
“Rather than do commercials, we’re inviting the country to come to the site and see how these families are using the integrated products,” Greenberg says.
The company is serious about gaining insight into the emotional role its goods can play in users’ daily lives. In fact, researchers from Columbia University’s sociology department will ride along, tracking the impact of sophisticated electronics on the families.
Greenberg says that notion first surfaced about a year ago when Panasonic rolled out its support service and began having regular phone or chat interactions with plasma TV buyers.
The company expected buyers to rave about picture quality or the effect of watching a Super Bowl on a large HD screen, and “we got that,” Greenberg says. “But, in addition, we got a lot of buyers saying, ‘My children’s friends are now coming over to our house to watch TV, and that gives me peace of mind.’ That suggested that really understanding what people want from a product we make and what they get from it could have a positive impact on our marketing efforts.”
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