[Phil Hinton]

It was one of the strangest (and amusing) press gatherings. It was the Phillips show launch.
Starting with a new sector of the company and a new man to run it, Andrea Ragnetti spoke about how Phillips are adopting the lifestyle image as their new brand. Indeed much of the opening speech covered technology becoming simpler to use, designer friendly and less masculine. A lot of effort was made in telling us how beautiful their new TVs are and that females make up 50% of buying decisions in most households and are turned off by technology.
The aim of Phillips new products is to celebrate the feminine aspects of technology through design.
This concept along with the phrase “The future of High Definition discs for the consumer is blue” could have been taken the wrong way completely.
However the ending to this – up until now sensible- press gathering was beginning to go downhill fast. To roars of laughter the company decided to end with their crystal line of products designed for the love in your life and modelled by some rather lovely females. What they were sporting was technology and design for the del-boys and chavs of the world, diamond studded USB keys with padlocks and earphones that glistened in the spotlights! Not only had the company just ruined their carefully crafted premise of the female being strong and the CE companies least tapped consumer base, they gave us all a jolly good laugh at the same time! Strangest press conference yet! Only in Vegas?

[mike7]

There's only 1 'L' in Philips !

[vlada]

well the new management that`s leading philips these last couple of years has indeed made many strange decisions and to their credit, they are consistent.