(21 December 2006 5:30 pm)

BANGALORE: Philips Electronics India (PEIL) announced the launch of their Ambilight Full Surround TV in Bangalore today, along with updates on their Portable digital audio players or MP3 players in common parlance.

Ambilight is a proprietary technology, a Philips invention that makes the viewing experience intense and immersive by throwing a soft glow on the wall behind the screen to enhance perceived brightness, contrast and colour accuracy, the company said. Ambilight Surround TVs are made in Philips Belgium plant.

The ad campaign for promoting this new offering commenced on December 15 and will run till the end of January next year. Around Rs 90 million has been earmarked for promoting Philips overall, of which more than half or around Rs 50 million has been allocated for the Ambilight campaign. Excluding the Ambilight campaign, Philips has spent around Rs 130 million during this calendar year towards product promotion and marketing.

The Ambilight campaign comprises of a ‘Hulk’ TVC, ads in magazines and outdoor. Philips is targeting the A and A+ cities initially and expects to garner about 10-15 per cent (around 50,000 units in absolute numbers) of the estimated 400,000 high end TV market in India. Currently Philips has a 6 per cent piece of the overall Indian TV market pie, with their current brand and Ambilght campaigns want to ramp this to 10 per cent.

The Ambilight Hulk TVC has been created globally by DDB (India-Mudra) and the media buying is by Carat. The TVC media plan includes primetime Hindi channels, news channesl and the Tamil, Kannada and Bengali channels. Philips have chalked out plans to have new TV product launches every two to three months and will be finalizing the spends for each campaign ‘wave’.

Also on the anvil are marketing campaigns for their MP3 players which have been launched so far in 10 cities in India.