Anyone else overwhelmed by the brand identity push on TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet, since Labor day by the major CE, PC, telecom, home network and accessory makers? It has me wondering what happened to the second tier of award winning TVs, audio components, PCs, and MP3 players during this back to school, back to work season.

The smaller manufacturers were barely visible or hardly heard from…on TV, in print, and on the web. And confusing matters for consumers is the fact that some major manufacturers, huge in awareness in some categories, are second tier in others.

Do Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco and the regional electronics chains move the less famous brands to the back of the building? Do the best in show, best in class products from these manufacturers go into hiding until a trade show gives them equal billing? Or does word of mouth still count so that Vizio, Westinghouse Digital, Sylvania-Funai, Creative Labs, SanDisk and HP can compete with Sony, Panasonic, Apple and Toshiba?

Thanks to a recent focus group in which thousands of consumers across the country answered questions on their home electronics purchases, desires, uses and future plans, I learned that “famous brands” are viewed as less important because the secondary brands now offer equal performance and customer/tech support (sometimes even better). The naysayers that used to criticize Westinghouse, Vizio, DXG and Sylvania for poor support, cheap prices and cheap products, must be eating their words.

“Yes we took our lumps, but now we are a top selling TV maker in almost any category. Plus, we’ll match our tech support with anyone and we’ll match our feature set with anyone,” says Jim Noyd, a spokesman for Vizio. Noyd claims that getting proper shelf space was a bit troublesome a few years ago, “But now that we offer a ”No Bad Pixel Warrantee,” the big box stores and the CE superstores are not afraid to position us next to a more famous brand.”

Paul Goldberg, vice president for sales and marketing of DXG, who admittedly launched his A/V company with an entry level approach five years ago, now claims that his camcorders and personal video cameras are made to such tough specs it’s easy for retailers to accept their new products as soon as they are released.

“Our consumers and retailers can buy with confidence and they should expect that we’ll still offer terrific pricing, but with terrific quality and service, too,” says Goldberg. He also contends that his products (which run about $100 to $200 less than some from Hitachi and Samsung), have the features that consumers most ask for. There are certain bells and whistles that consumers never use and we can save money by stripping that out of our video products,” Goldberg argues. “But our tech support is open for as many hours as the more famous brands.” 

But do these brands expect to keep shelf space, while others bombard the airwaves with advertising? “Our word of mouth advertising is so strong that I think it overcomes the fact that we don’t have a bazillion dollar budget and we put our profits right back into our R&D, which reaps results in customer loyalty…almost as good as advertising, sometimes.” claims Noyd.

Recent research also shows that more and more regional CE retailers and wholesale clubs can and do support the newer brands with as good as possible sales promotion, sales training and even sometimes store positioning.

“We make a conscious effort to offer our customers the best variety in products and product categories, “says Justin Barber, a marketing executive at Best Buy. “Our store designers are charged with making it easier to find all our brands… big or small.”

According to the focus group, TV brands like Sylvania in Wal-Mart and Vizio in Costco were better physically positioned in some stores than Sony and Sharp TV products. In the higher-end regional retailers, Vizio and Westinghouse were displayed prominently despite the lack of advertising. 

And in a survey that used only non-commissioned sales people, Vizio and Westinghouse Digital TVs were recommended for quality and value from sales associates right up to store managers way more than Sharp and Samsung, with Sony and Panasonic barely holding their own with sales people.

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