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<ul><li>In our latest series, we talk to brands about how they have been <keyword id="6354839" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="marketing">marketing</keyword> during these adverse times, the things they have learnt and how they are preparing for the somewhat uncertain future.</li><li><keyword id="6354991" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="vijay-babu">Vijay Babu</keyword>, VP - Home Appliances, <keyword id="135696" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="LG-Electronics-India">LG Electronics India</keyword> tells us how there has been a surge in the demand for the brand's home appliance products as people have been staying at home and trying to find a balance between house work and office work with the help of products like washing machines and dishwashers.</li><li>He is also optimistic about a good sell-out during the festive season due to the increased relevance of products that help in strengthening people's health and hygiene.</li></ul> The lockdown, while has had the obvious impact on our lives, has also had some indirect impact on a lot of businesses. For example, the fact that we are all stuck at home has led to more consumption of content on TV and OTT platforms. Meanwhile, considering we are all working from home, demand for home office setups and even mattresses are seeing an increase. With gyms shut for business, people are working out at home, thereby leading to an increase in demand for the athleisure category too. Something similar has happened with LG Electronics too. Since the lockdown has made willing or unwilling multitaskers out of all of us, the demand for dishwashers and washing machines, categories that make our daily existence easier, have seen an increase. Since the lockdown is slowly being lifted, brands are witnessing the impact of pent-up demand. Even for LG, their home appliance range has witnessed an increase in demand in the past few weeks. We recently caught up with Vijay Babu, VP - Home Appliances, LG Electronics India to understand the kind of business impact the lockdown had on the brand and how they are working towards strengthening their place in the hearts and minds of the customers. Excerpts: Q) Considering the complete closure of retail outlets, malls, manufacturing units etc., what kind of impact has there been on LG's business in the last few months? The onslaught of the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> <keyword id="43587" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="pandemic">pandemic</keyword> has had a major impact across the economy in all sectors, while rapidly spreading across the world without any regard for national borders, class, gender, or communities. In these times, brands are facing the brunt of adapting to the ‘New Normal’ in a very short span. At LG Electronics surprisingly our customers have been by our side and in fact, working from home has led to rise in sales for our home appliance range. The two key factors behind this rise in demand, has been the onset of summer- leading to the need for compressor products like air conditioners etc. The lockdown has also ensured multitasking as a necessity for various working professionals. For them, a dishwasher or washing machine have become essential to balance household chores along with professional duties. In the last month, the economy has slowly opened through limited restrictions from the government. This has led to a major rush in purchases from the pent-up demand of the last few ‘lockdown’ months, as seen in June. However, a lack of liquidity in the economy is still prevalent cause of concern and we hope to assist our customer base in every way possible, till the economy comes back to normal. Q) What kind of festive season are we looking at this year? Do you think <keyword id="1549018" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="consumer-sentiments">consumer sentiments</keyword> will turn and people will buy during the festive season? This year is expected to be different than others, due to the pandemic. It is also affected by the economic repercussions from it, leading to restricted incomes for several families. However, consumer sentiments have been changing drastically in the last few months, it is too soon to predict how the festive season will be in terms of consumer demand. However, considering the unique Health &amp; Hygiene benefits offered by LG Appliances, and their increased relevance and significance in the current scenario, we are extremely confident, for a good sell-out during the festive season. Q) As a brand, what kind of changes are you anticipating in consumer behavior? How are you working on embracing these changes and working around them? People are living differently, buying differently and in many ways, thinking differently. In fact, their way of looking at a product while buying it has also completely changed and the new habits created is expected to transcend crisis, permanently changing the consumer decision making process. In the consumer durables industry, we are already observing a change in consumer behavior. Various surveys have indicated that consumer durables remain a top priority on the purchase list post-lockdown. There is a demand for bigger capacity appliances with larger storage to have better stocks, especially in washing machines &amp; Refrigerators.Consumers are also interested to know the origin of products; they are looking for products manufactured in India. We have seen a good demand among customers for refrigerators this 2020 season. In fact, the twin drivers for the refrigerator market are ‘Enough Storage’ and ‘Ensure Hygiene’ of the stored Items. Features such as water and ice dispenser on the outside or a small home bar compartment; number of shelves in refrigerator; maximizing the storage in door for frequently required items have been in trend with our consumers this year. Steam function in washing machine &amp; dishwashers is preferred by consumers as they want to be sure about hygiene aspect. Q) Were there any interesting consumer trends during the lockdown that perhaps you did not anticipate? Any product vertical that saw a sharp increase in demand? Do you think demand for segments like dishwashers and vacuum cleaners will continue to see an increase in the post-Covid world? We have seen a huge jump in dishwasher sales; in the future, we predict an increase in consumption of vacuum cleaners &amp; dishwashers as people continue doing their own chores. Televisions have also seen a major growth in demand, due to the attraction to home screens for indoor entertainment. Consumers are also preferring ‘Made in India’ products in accordance to the government’s ‘VOCAL FOR LOCAL’ campaign becoming a significant driving factor. According to a Nielsen survey, 28% consumers in 12 cities across the country are open to the idea of buying a home dishwasher or microwave among other home appliances in the next few weeks as the country wakes up from the lockdown. This is valid even as all other additional expenditures including going on a holiday, buying a vehicle like a car, or renovating the house, has been put on hold. We are predicting a pent-up demand for home appliances in the next few months and have been preparing for it to provide customers easier ways to get access to our products through digital e-commerce platforms or through our sanitized retail shops. Q) The summer demand for products like ACs would have seen a major hit due to the lockdown. Are there chances of a recovery in terms of sales in the remaining part of the year? Yes, at the onset of the pandemic we found a dip in our summer product sales. However, this trend did not continue for long, partly due to opening of the economy as well as the summer heat. In fact, we had 10-day period in May when the AC sales shot up three folds and even in June, we have witnessed the same trend especially in the Northern Region. Henceforth, we are positive that the demand for white goods like air conditioners will continue to improve despite the pandemic. Q) It is important for brands to stay connected with consumers even during adverse times. How did you ensure that connect during the lockdown? What kind of communications did you put out? Safety is an essential concern for all, and the ‘touch and feel’ part in the consumer buying process might be reduced significantly at this juncture. Henceforth, customer engagements through digital platforms have become the norm to communicate key messages. At LG Electronics, our social media channels and website have been the biggest platforms for us to communicate unique product benefits to our audience. Not only this, we have also posted DIY (Do It Yourself) videos for repairing productsas well as options for pre-booking products. These engagements were taken ahead with the motive to help existing customers, who can order a home repair session from us as well as new customers who might be interested in our products but cannot avail it due to the lockdown. Q) Did your overall media mix change during the lockdown? Will it change again, in the post-Covid world? During the lockdown, the media mix has consistently veered towards online media. We have tried to create engaging content which can cheer up people’s spirits; for example, on Mother’s Day we created a video to salute COVID warriors. The same received a significant amount of traction in media and audience. A healthy media mix is important to a brand, to increase the reach of communication; in the post-COVID world, we will see an integrated media approach. As a brand, we must wait and watch where the media trends take us. However, since consumer behaviors are shifting towards the ‘new normal’ where safety is prioritized, we believe digital platforms will become the new norm. Q) What were your key learnings from this experience? We are celebrating our 23rd anniversary in India this year and over the course of these years we have strengthened our market leadership due to a strong product portfolio developed through customer insights in India. This pandemic has brought us closer to consumers and thus, our key learning has been offering solutions as per consumer’s needs; Home Appliances were a key priority for them and we have designed various programs to reach out to consumers both in terms of new product delivery &amp; service of existing products.As a brand, we hope to be empathetic as we create products to help our customers move on from the trials and tribulations of this pandemic and get used to a ‘New Normal’.

Work from home has led to an increase in sales of our home appliance range: Vijay Babu, LG Electronics India

If you are worried about the hot weather of last few days, you better install an <keyword id="94850" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="AC">AC</keyword> if you don’t have already. Just to make you happy on weekend, air-conditioners will experience a price drop soon. And all this is happening because <keyword id="6356116" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="LG">LG</keyword> has cut prices of its regular and power saving ACs. So to stay in the competition, other brands would follow the same suit. 
 
Despite an increase of 15% in making costs because of steep import duty of Chinese-imported components such as compressors and indoor units, most brands are now looking to cut down the prices. 
 "Since we vacated the fixed speed AC segment, we got the scale of manufacturing and operations that allowed us to cut prices of the inverter AC," <keyword id="135696" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="LG-Electronics-India">LG Electronics India</keyword> business head (AC) <keyword id="6354991" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vijay-Babu">Vijay Babu</keyword> told The Economic Times. 
 
LG's current inverter 1.5 tonne AC is priced around Rs 46,000 this year, compared with Rs 51,000 last year: A similar capacity 5 star regular split AC is priced around Rs 39,000- Rs 42,000.However, the smaller brands and online-exclusive manufacturers have cut prices further, selling a unit anywhere between Rs 32,000 and Rs 36,000, as per a news report by the ET.

​ Stay cool this summer; AC prices to drop by 25%

<keyword id="2166869" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flintobox">Flintobox</keyword>- a child development startup has filed a legal notice against the e-commerce giant Amazon. Flintobox is claiming that the online retailer had unlawfully used the brand name of the Chennai based company as a keyword to drive traffic to its own website. 
 In the notice sent to Amazon, the startup’s lawyer asserts Amazon's act of "deceitful diversion" was unlawful under trademark laws and is also prohibited under the AdWord policy of search major <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword>. 
 
Flintobox said that it has approached Amazon with the complaint first in July and then Again in October. In return the startup only got a template response. 
 
Flintobox is suing the etailer for damages of Rs 10 lakh. 
 "We had to start a social media campaign against Amazon because the company was not responding. The decision to go legal is also one taken when few alternatives were in view," <keyword id="3984937" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vijay-Babu-Gandhi">Vijay Babu Gandhi</keyword>, cofounder of Flintobox, told ET. 
 A representative for <keyword id="6354743" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon-India">Amazon India</keyword> said, "Our automated systems pick ke ywords based on what users search and buy , Amazon follows all copy right and trademark policies." "We have paused all our ads mentionin the Flintobox brand and variation of the same in our ad copies on Google," the representative said in re sponse to email queries from ET. 
 
Google did not reply to ET's queries on the development. 
 
Intellectual property law expert and search engine optimisation technicians point to the possibility of a software tool - Amazon in its reply mentions an automated system - that decides which "phrase" to bid on Google to drive traffic. 
 "I would assume that many people had searched for Flintobox on Amazon, and, may be, a real-time bidding tool for <keyword id="447199" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google-Adwords">Google AdWords</keyword> had picked it up as a keyword, not realising it was in fact a brand name,” <keyword id="2751557" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Antony-Kattukaran">Antony Kattukaran</keyword>, an entrepreneur who had built a search engine optimiser, told ET. 
 
Trademark law experts say the law protects an entity against infringement just with the same vigour in the virtual world. However in this case, where software has generated a trademarked brand as keyword, the case gets more complex.

Flintobox sues Amazon for using its brand’s name to drive traffic

Prices for LED TV and appliances such as refrigerator, washing machines are expected to go up by around 10 per cent from January next year on account of rise in costs of key input materials like copper, aluminium and steel and increase in ocean and air freights charges. Besides, prices of TV panels (Opencell) have also gone up by over two-folds due to short supply by the global vendors, while cost of plastic has also gone up due to rise in crude oil prices, said manufacturers. Terming it as imminent and unavoidable, manufacturers such as LG, Panasonic and <keyword id="192310" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thomson">Thomson</keyword> are going to increase the prices from January, however, Sony is still reviewing the situation and is yet to take a call on this. "We expect the increase in commodity prices to impact our product pricing in near future. I anticipate the prices to go up by 6-7 per cent in January itself and may go up to 10-11 per cent towards end of FY Q1," said Panasonic India President &amp; CEO Manish Sharma. LG <keyword id="3628053" type="DOMAIN" weightage="20" keywordseo="electronics-india">Electronics India</keyword> is also going to increase the price of a minimum of 7 to 8 per cent across its products in the appliances category from January 1 next year. "From January, we are going to increase the price of 7-to 8 per cent on all products including TV, <keyword id="87019" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Washing-machine">Washing Machine</keyword>, refrigerator etc. There is an increase in raw material prices and metals as copper and aluminium. Moreover, crude oil prices have gone up, hence the cost of plastic materials have also gone up substantially," said LG Electronics India VP-Home Appliances Vijay Babu. While for <keyword id="233026" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sony-India">Sony India</keyword>, it's still a 'wait and watch' situation and yet to take a final call on this but hinted that it is also moving in that directions. On being asked about the prices Sony India Managing Director Sunil Nayyar said: "Not yet. It is a wait and watch. We are watching the supply side, which is changing day by day. Its blurry situation and we have not decided as how much... Tendency is moving towards that situation." The panel prices have edged up and the some of the other raw material costs also has gone up, specially for the TV, he added. "I reckon it with primarily with demand and supply situation. There is excess demand because of work from home and there is limited supply because factories were not running at full capacity and that has created a vacuum in the supply side and have pushed up the prices," said Nayyar adding "it was a perfect storm as all thing came together disruption in supply, excessive demand and extraneous issues". Prices of small screen sizes have a bigger issue for the industry and their prices have gone up significantly. "Off course, the large screen also has an issue but I do not think it is troubling. India is still a predominantly 32-inch screen size market," said Nayyar. <keyword id="3562273" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="super-plastronics">Super Plastronics</keyword>, the brand licensee for French Electronics brand Thomson and Kodak, said there is a scarcity of TV Opencell in the market and the prices have almost gone up by 200 per cent. "There is an increase of 200 per cent in panel prices and despite the increase, there is short supply. Due to no alternative of panel manufacture at the global stage, we are dependent on China. So, Thomson and Kodak will increase the android TV prices by 20 per cent from January," said SPPL CEO <keyword id="4774298" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Avneet-Singh-Marwah">Avneet Singh Marwah</keyword>. Videotex International Director Arjun Bajaaj said: "The other factor leading to a sharp rise in the prices is the three-fold increase in Import Freight charges compared to October 2020." However, there is a warning note also from the Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) saying that a price hike by the brands may also hamper the overall demand in the next quarter. "A rise in the commodity cost by 20-25 per cent, increase in the ocean and air freights to the extent of 5-6 times due to shortage of containers and the lag in the mining activity due to the pandemic is putting upward pressure on the overall input cost for Appliances. As a result, brands are most likely to increase prices to the extent of 8-10 per cent in near future, which may hamper the overall demand in the next quarter," said CEAMA President Kamal Nandi. However, Nandi, who is also Business Head and Executive Vice President - Godrej Appliances, said the industry hopes that it will be offset to some extent by pent up demand surfacing now. According to Nayyar: "It would not sustain for a long period but for the industry until the first half of the next year, the pressure would remain." The Indian appliances and consumer electronics industry is largely dependent on global imports, mainly from China, for the sourcing of components and some of the finished goods. According to a joint report by CEAMA and Frost &amp; Sullivan, the industry had a total market size of Rs 76,400 crore in 2018-19, in which Rs 32,200 crore was contributed from domestic manufacturing. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/mahindra-mahindra-to-raise-prices-of-tractors-from-january-1/articleshow/79835855.cms">Mahindra &amp; Mahindra to raise prices of tractors from January 1</a>

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Work from home has led to an increase in sales of our home appliance range: Vijay Babu, LG Electronics India

Samarpita Banerjee

Stay cool this summer; AC prices to drop by 25%

BI India Bureau

Flintobox sues Amazon for using its brand’s name to drive traffic

BI India Bureau

Prices of TV and home appliances likely to go up by around 10% from January 2021

PTI

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You Searched For "Vijay Babu" and got 4 results

Work from home has led to an increase in sales of our home appliance range: Vijay Babu, LG Electronics India

Samarpita Banerjee

​ Stay cool this summer; AC prices to drop by 25%

BI India Bureau

Flintobox sues Amazon for using its brand’s name to drive traffic

BI India Bureau

Prices of TV and home appliances likely to go up by around 10% from January 2021

PTI

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Stay cool this summer; AC prices to drop by 25%