Web 2.0 Asia

Do you know what's #1 electronics brand in India? It's not Sony, Samsung, or even Tata (Not sure Tata is in electronics business, but they seem to make everything). It's LG.

Knowledge@Wharton has a podcast with Y.V. Verma, who has been director of human resources and management support for LG's India division since 1997. Verma has even authored a book on LG India called "Passion: The Untold Story of LG Electronics India."

Verma says the key success factor of LG India was empowerment - handling the decision power to the local staff as a way to hire and retain good talent. Sounds easy, but it's definitely not the typical way Korean conglomerates are run, I can say.

I posted this because some of the readers might be working at a local branch of a multinational company. Mr Verma is a living evidence that you can succeed big time at multinationals, or if you are determined enough, you might even pull a book endorsement. What's cooler than writing a book? (except for blogging, that is ;-) )

LG Electronics recently launched a blog dedicated for its HDTV product line. In Korea, LG uses the "X-Canvas" sub-brand for high-end HDTVs and the blog is accordingly called the "X-Canvas TV Blog".


A quick look at the recent entries include: "Introduction to Time Machine Feature" (a product feature of X-Canvas TV that records live TV broadcasting to hard disk for later playback), "X-Canvas takes the world", "X-Canvas TV commercial", "Tips on using HDMI slot", etc.

Just like the Kia Buzz blog introduced here a few months ago, LG X-Canvas blog tries to send marketing messages using a more human voice.

Man, who would have thought digital TVs will get their own blogs? So what comes next, a blog for lipsticks?

Yesterday, LG had a big launching and PR event for its new product, "The Shine". The Shine was to be a very important product for LG, since the company wants to continue its pleasant rebound, achieved largely by its smash-hit model, the Chocolate (approx 5 million units sold so far).

No wonder LG made sure nothing goes wrong with the Shine's launch, but then suddenly Samsung made a PR on a similar product, just before the Shine launch event.

Samsung's product had already been out there for some time and is not exactly in the same market as the Shine's - Obviously the sole purpose of Samsung's PR was to "dilute" the Shine's market impact and thereby ruining LG's party. Now LG is complaining (quite rightfully I guess) that its 10-month effort for the Shine product launch got marred by Samsung's dirty PR play.

Competition is a good thing, but when the competition gets too heated and becomes a mudfight, that's not pretty at all.