Marketing Design and Innovation

When VIZIO first entered the highly competitive LCD TV market in 2003 the price point for 40 inch plasma TVs averaged around $2000 - $2500, while the average price for a CRT TV was only $500. The price difference limited the consumers to the ones that had a college education, were prosperous, and obviously had a significant disposable income. As such, the products only targeted the market segment that included customers that were 35+

Televisions through time went from bulky, low resolution models to elegant High Definition (HD), Ultra HD displays. As they got slimmer, the resolution went higher as well, allowing for sharper images when gaming or watching movies and shows. It has been made possible by the addition of more and more pixels to increase the visual quality of the images displayed through it. Audio has improved as well, by being able to connect wireless speakers to the TV for surround sound, through Bluetooth.

disagreed with the whole idea and the television remained . Even though my mother had

Coaxial cable supplies the signal for our televisions on the wall therefore, these televisions have not been affected.

2. Other companies that produce televisions, such as Philips, have grown into major industries that have learned from Farnsworth’s design to evolve the television to what we have today.

The walls basically oversized television sets, very akin to the flat screen televisions present in modern society. The problem with these technical monstrosities of Cathode

One of Porter’s main contributions was Porter’s value chain. The value chain is all the activities an organization undertakes to create value for a customer. According to Porter, there are two ways to gain an edge over competitors. A firm must provide comparable but value but perform the activities on the chain at a lower cost, or; Perform services in a unique way

“Competitive Advantage introduces the concept of the value chain, a general Framework for thinking strategically about the activities involved in any business and assessing their relative cost and role in differentiation”. Michael Porter, (1985).

Beam limiting devices are currently used more frequently. Beam limiting devices attach directly to the x-ray tube which limits

“The early television was developed by the company called RCA. This company had televised a speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the year 1939. This made Roosevelt the first President of the United States to ever appear on television. According to the Grolier Encyclopedia television had remained quite experimental during those following years to perfect the machine before selling, and in the year 1946, there were only 6,000 television sets worldwide in use. Television grew rapidly after World War II, and commercial television as it is known today began in the late 1940s” (Ask. Television (n.d.). “Some of the best manufactures are Samsung electronics, LG electronics, Sony corporation, Panasonic, Sharp, Vizio, Philips, Toshiba, Mitsubishi,

At the first look, LCD and plasma TVs look the same. Plasma and LCD TV’s are flat and thin, and both incorporate many of the same features. Both TVs can be wall mounted, offer the internet and of course

Price is a factor that holds a large portion of Vizio’s executive’s visions for the company. They are strong believers in offering the greatest entertainment for a very affordable price. This is what creates the advantage they posses over competitors. There is a strategically effective approach the company takes in order to offer these products in the price range in which they do. The televisions themselves are designed in America, but manufactured in Taiwan by Amtrans Technology Ltd. They are then imported to America by Amtrans. Amtrans is widely known as being the best quality producer of HDTV’s and is the second largest producer of flat panel televisions. As for the screens on the televisions, Vizio’s LCD screens are made by LG and their plasma’s are made by Panasonic. This ensures that all of their televisions offer the same, if not better quality, than Vizio’s competitors. Using such a large manufacturer such as Amtrans also allows Vizio to import and sell their products for cheaper than other companies. Therefore, we believe using this process will allow Vizio to import their televisions to Australia for around the same cost as those companies that they will be competing

Around 1930, it was seen that mechanical television would never be able to produce a proper quality which could be used for commercials and other programs. An electronic television needs a picture tube this allowed to display the picture and an electronic camera tube was needed in order to capture the image. Philo Farnsworth, produced images on his image dissector camera tube in 1927. However, the image dissector required too much light to be practical for television.

The Coolidge tube could operate to energies up to 100,000 volts. General Electric went on to make x-ray tubes capable of operating at energies up to 1,000,000 volts, which gave the x-ray technology enough stability to become industrialized and mass produced.

With the idea of activity mapping, Porter (1996) builds on his ideas of generic strategy and the value chain to describe strategy implementation in more detail. Competitive advantage requires that the firm's value chain be managed as a system rather than a collection of separate parts. Positioning choices determine not only which activities a company will perform and how it will configure individual activities, but also how they relate to one another. This is crucial, since the essence of implementing strategy is in the activities - choosing to perform activities differently or to perform different activities than rivals. A firm is more than the sum of its activities. A firm's value chain is an interdependent system or network of activities, connected by linkages. Linkages occur when the way in which one activity is performed affects the cost or effectiveness of other activities. Linkages create tradeoffs requiring optimization and coordination.