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Mark Viken maybe the marketing VP for Hisense USA, a relatively new TV badge to these shores, but he's no newcomer to the business.
A former brand and product marketing VP at Sharp, he also served as marketing VP at market research firm MarketSource, and before that honed his industry skills for 25 years at Sony, were he left as marketing and new business development senior VP.
TWICE recently caught up with Viken as Hisense's first step-up 4K ULED TVs began shipping and the ink on a FIFA World Cup sponsorship deal was still drying, representing the next phase in the Chinese manufacturer's U.S. marketplace plans.
TWICE: In what ways is the U.S. market unique?
The U.S. is one of the more challenging markets in that you have a concentrated group of very large and demanding retailers. Our chairman (Zhou Houjian) says you want to do business with the toughest customer because it makes you a better company. So the U.S. is both a challenge and a positive.
Different markets also have different tastes when it comes to the display image. U.S. consumers tend to want a more accuracy-based color gamut, while other markets prefer it when certain tints are highlighted.
TWICE: How do you tailor TVs to a region?
We have a team of 40 R&D people in Atlanta that work very closely with the engineers in China that do the platform design work and develop the modules.
TWICE: Hisense got its foot in the door here with well-made and aggressively priced TVs. What's the next step?
It starts with great products....