After a successful 2009 season, Smeg Appliances is starting 2010 with a bang by aligning itself with several key events around the country.

According to national marketing manager Greg McKinley, Smeg Appliances is endeavouring to ramp up its promotional activity throughout 2010. The company’s partnership with the Taste of Sydney and Jamie Oliver is set to begin later this week.

“We have renewed our sponsorship of the Taste of Sydney festival for the second year in a row,” he said.

“We have sponsorship of the main stage and our own VIP lounge area. For the lounge area, we have also aligned ourselves with several premium Italian brands.”

Smeg will also be sponsoring Jamie Oliver LIVE in Melbourne, where Oliver will demonstrate his cooking prowess on Smeg appliances – a brand he has a long standing relationship with.

McKinley said that the company performed well towards the end of 2009. He was optimistic that 2010 will be even more successful.

“We had a pretty good finish to 2009 and we have continued this success over the first few months of the year,” he said.

“This was due in no small part to our new Smeg range of ovens and compacts, which have been very well received by both the trade and consumers. The 68L net capacity, ever clean enamel and cool door technology, along with Thermoseal, certainly position the Smeg oven range as the market leader.”

“In addition to this, consumers are becoming more aware and interested in the ‘family’ of built-in products, not just the traditional oven and microwave. The new Smeg range of compacts perfectly compliment the ovens and include the biggest steam oven and the best coffee machine on the market.”

2010 is set to be a very busy year for the Smeg brand, as it will continue a strong investment in events such as the Taste of Melbourne, DesignEX and The Pantry Cooking Show (Melbourne). A new state-of-the-art showroom is also currently being planned for Melbourne. McKinley said that this will be located closer to the city to increase traffic.

McKinley couldn’t go into too much detail over new product releases for 2010, but he did outline that there will be new releases across several of its product categories for both the Smeg and Omega brands.

The Taste of Sydney festival is located at Sydney’s Centennial Park from Thursday 11 March to Sunday 21 March. Jamie Oliver LIVE will be held at Melbourne’s Hisense Arena on Friday 12 March and Saturday 13 March.