By Claire Reilly

LG Australia is taking to the road to launch its new SmartWasher series of washing machines, with the brand touring the country on a national roadshow to promote the range and to reiterate its whitegoods strategy to Australian retailers.

Speaking about the new range at yesterday’s product launch in Sydney, Murray Richardson, general manager of LG’s home appliances business unit, said key retail partners were being given a closer look at the line-up through the brand’s roadshow. Stopping in at Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Perth, the roadshow represented a “big investment” from a brand looking to solidify its position as a market leader in appliances.

“The market is under a lot of competitive pressure at the moment,” said Richardson. “There’s a lot of talk about price rather than feature set and there’s been a gradual decline in average selling prices.

“We want to take responsibility in turning this around.”

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Despite the decline in the market, Richardson said LG had been working hard to bring retailers a diversified product range and “better model mix” in its home appliances offering, focusing on premium products in order to separate the LG brand from others in the marketplace.

“We are implementing a good, better, best strategy,” he said. “To do this successfully, you’ve got to have strong features.

“We’re still trying to remain competitive, but we’re not the cheapest,” he added. “There are customers for each segment [of the good, better, best offering], but hopefully those customers in the ‘good’ zone would think of trading up to a ‘better’ model, based on LG’s features. We’re making the upsell easier for retailers.”

One example of the strong features that LG is bringing in to encourage retailers to trade up is the introduction of its Direct Drive motors on SmartWash washing machines. First introduced three-to-four years ago, the Direct Drive motors improved machine performance, increased average selling prices by “about $150” and lead to increased connection to consumers.

“People really understood it [the Direct Drive message] and really embraced it,” He said.

According to Richardson, the features of a good product range need to be effectively communicated to consumers, which LG is doing with strong point-of-sale materials featuring brand ambassador and TV personality, Georgie Parker.

This also needs to be matched by a strong partnership with retailers. In LG’s case, this is facilitated through its sales team, which is helping to get the LG message out into the broader market.

“We’ve been told that we’ve got the best in the industry in terms of our sell-out team,” said Richardson. “The retailers are becoming our ambassadors.”

With this latest launch, Richardson said he is happy with how LG is performing in the industry.

“We’re really confident in what we’re doing and it’s a well calculated range,” he said.

General manager of LG’s home appliances business unit, Murray Richardson (left) and marketing general manager Lambro Skropidis with LG’s new 10-kilogram Top Loader SmartWasher (WT-R10856, RRP $1,599).

Read Current.com.au’s round-up of the new SmartWasher line-up here.