SCARLET CAMPAIGN – WAS IT REALLY SUCH A GOOD IDEA?

In an attempt to come up with online and TV ads for their new flagship product, Scarlet, LG came up with a truly innovate yet exciting marketing strategy. This 100 million dollar campaign promotes their LG Scarlet LCD TV by creating the concept of a new TV Show called Scarlet, getting it places into the imdb.com, drumming up a full release party with 500 invitees and then telling everyone it’s a big hoax and that Scarlet is a series of TV’s not TV series. Is deceiving the public, really such a great way to sell TV’s?  As LG is many ways a traditional Korean company, the Scarlet ads were very outrageous and wasn’t a part of its DNA.  Yet, in the end the “Scarlet” ads are LG’s largest-ever campaign for a single product. According to Kwan-Sup Lee, vice president of brand marketing at LG Electronics, the hardest part of the campaign was selling it internally.  The fake Scarlet TV show began with a teaser commercial for Scarlet that ran on TV and online. It did not LG.   The action-packed trailer features Ms. Malthe, a sexy brunette, in several action scenes, including one in which she crashes through a plate-glass window and uses her karate skills against four masked men.  To drum up even more publicity, LG made sure that Ms. Malthe attended red-carpet events, including Fashion Week in New York, the Bafta awards in London (the British equivalent of the Oscars), and several film premieres in Los Angeles.

As the third-largest flat-panel maker behind Samsung Electronics and Sony, LG hasn't spent nearly as much on marketing (about half of Samsung, and over 25% less than Sony). The stunt, which may or may not have backfired is designed to give LG more oomph behind its marketing dollars and help it to rise above the commodity-style market of the flat panel TV industry. To this day though, the LG Scarlet ad is known as one of the most successful, though not as highly publicized, practical jokes to hit the marketing scene since Taco Bell "bought" the Liberty Bell in 1996.  LG is now airing ads that reveal that Scarlet is in fact a series of TV’s not a TV series. The new Scarlet LG is one of the thinnest LCD TV’s in the world. With its sleak design and full HD resolution, the new LG Scarlet was first unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January in Las Vegas.  At just 45mm thick, it has a striking appearance, utilising a bright red design which will appeal to viewers who want a TV that is attractive to look at as well as to watch. It includes intelligent sensor technology which detects the surrounding light level and provides users with the perfect picture and is available to buy in four sizes, 47in, 42in and 37in with 1,920 x 1,080 panels and a 32in set with a 1,366 x 768 resolution.