Over the last few days, I’ve been seeing advertisements for curved TVs from Samsung and LG on Indian television. The LG ad talked about the number of LEDs on the screen while the Samsung ad implied that the TV would provide an immersive experience. Sadly, none of the ads were compelling.

Curved TVs are new. Since the invention of television, we have watched them on screens that were “flat”, be they CRT, rear projection, plasma, or LCD (perhaps there were other technologies but they slip my mind!). So, when I see an ad for a curved TV, the first thing that comes to mind is “gimmicky”! I wonder how many of you have a similar reaction.

Now, assuming that it is more than a gimmick, to build their brand, LG and Samsung would need to help consumers understand what’s in it for them and do so credibly. Assuming the curved TV provides a more immersive viewing experience, then this needs to be communicated along with a credible explanation of why the curvature makes the experience more immersive.

The Samsung ad conveys the immersive idea but leaves one wondering why it should be so as no effort is made to convey how and why a curved TV should produce such an experience. The LG ad falls short on all counts. Why do we care about more LEDs? More importantly, what does a higher number of LEDs have to do with the TV being curved?

It’s surprising that two leading companies in the consumer electronics space should fall so short in their efforts to communicate with the target customer. So, my two bits for the week are: when introducing something new, think about how to convey the key benefit and do so credibly!

A couple of years ago HTC was, if anything, nosing ahead of Samsung in smartphones. In fact, in the last quarter of 2011, HTC had become the bestselling smartphone brand in the US! An amazing achievement for a firm that entered the branded business only in 2004! Then HTC slid, and the last two and a half years years have been a struggle for the brand. What went wrong?

Thinking about it, it struck me that the big difference between HTC and Samsung is that Samsung has moved on to provide an eco-system of consumer electronic products, both personal (e.g., smartphones, cameras, pads, notebooks) and family (e.g., TVs) that connect and talk together, while HTC has not moved beyond smartphones and pads.

Not only do the various Samsung products talk to each other, but Samsung has launched the Kies software which allows Samsung users to organize and move content easily from one device to another. This is the capability that made Apple such a successful brand in the first place.

The lesson for building a successful consumer electronics brand, then, is not just that one must have good products, but that one needs to be able to offer an integrated eco-system of products that seamlessly connect to each other as well as easy-to-use software that helps the consumer readily acquire, organize, and manage content across devices.

I wonder if HTC is making a move in this direction? I clearly preferred the HTC One smartphone over the Samsung Galaxy S4, when I acquired a new smartphone last year, but I bought the Samsung Galaxy S4, as it made my life overall simpler. I hope your listening, HTC!

Lenovo’s acquisition of Motorola from Google for $2.9 billion seems to have gone down badly among investors, with Lenovo stocks losing over 16% of their value since the announcement. The press suggests that the deal was not good for Lenovo because Google retained the majority of the patents that had been owned by Motorola. What’s not clear to me is why is the fact that Lenovo did not get the patents a concern for Lenovo?

Looking at pure numbers, Google paid $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola and it has been reported that the patents owned by Motorola are valued at around $5 billion. Additionally, for its acquisition price, Google gained access to $3 billion in cash that was with Motorola, and was able to sell Motorola’s set-top box business for another $2.35 billion. Google also has absorbed roughly $2 billion in losses since the acquisition, again according to reports. Given these number, it does not seem unreasonable for Lenovo to have paid $2.9 billion for Motorola, an acquisition which could prove transformative for Lenovo in the long run. Why do I think this?

Lenovo’s current business is dominated by PCs. Lenovo is the #1 player in this business, but being #1 in a shrinking category is cold comfort. Lenovo is the #4 smartphone player in the world, a position driven primarily by its #2 position in China, a market where growth is slowing, which is likely to force Lenovo to look overseas for growth. The Lenovo brand is just beginning to establish itself in the US and other developed markets, and it is hardly ready for an extension in to smartphones in most markets outside China.

The Motorola brand could be just the thing Lenovo needed to rapidly catapult itself in to the global smartphone business. First, in the US and around the world, the Motorola brand has presence in consumers’ minds a presence that is not only the result of Motorola’s pioneering efforts in the mobile phone industry but also due to its access to consumers through its numerous links with the carriers. For Lenovo, the sheer ubiquity of the Motorola brand both in terms of access and in consumers’ minds is very significant. Without the acquisition, it would have taken Lenovo years and vast sums of money to create the presence that Motorola offers instantly.

Second, the Motorola brand has relevance. Motorola is relevant in the mobile phone category, where it has had a long presence, making it both credible and trusted by consumers. Lenovo on the other hand has no relevance in the mobile phone or smartphone category outside of China, as it currently sells its smartphones primarily in China, with a small presence in a few other countries. As such, the Motorola brand gives Lenovo the opportunity to leap in to this category worldwide, instantly and with credibility.

Finally, Motorola is a storied brand with a history dating back to 1928. Thus, the brand provides an opportunity for Lenovo to differentiate itself in a highly competitive category. This differentiation is not only in comparison with the myriad of Chinese smartphone players that are flooding in to the market, but also in comparison to globally dominant players like Samsung and Apple. Whether Lenovo will be successfully able to leverage the Motorola brand’s heritage remains to be seen. But, given how adroitly Lenovo leveraged the ThinkPad brand it acquired from IBM a decade ago, there is no reason to count Lenovo out in this regard. Indeed, the markets were equally pessimistic when other EMNCs acquired storied MNCs like Motorola–e.g., Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors in 2008, but the markets were wrong!

Only time will tell if the Motorola acquisition will be a game changer for Lenovo, but I am much more optimistic than either the market or the many pundits who have expressed concerns!

The economic slowdown in the BRICS economies and indeed the emerging markets at large are posing a problem, particularly so for MNCs, as they eye rural markets for growth. MNCs, particularly, developed market MNCs, are by and large ill-poised to win in these markets.

Consider the automotive market in India. No developed market car maker has a market share greater than 6% of the Indian market; indeed the only foreign car maker with a greater share is Hyundai, an EMNC. In comparison, India’s Maruti has a 30%+ share of the market and over 30% of Maruti’s sales come from population centers with less than 10,000 people. Thus, in the rural markets, the incumbent brand and the one to beat is a domestic brand that over the past several years has been successful in defending its market position. India’s Mahindra and Mahindra is also a strong player in these markets with its robust SUVs.

Besides being the incumbent with a long and credible history, a key advantage that enables the likes of Maruti to defend their market position, particularly in rural markets is its extensive distribution system; Maruti has some 1300 dealerships across India. In comparison, Honda hopes to have 170 by the end of the current financial year while GM, which has been in India for almost 20 years now has less than 300!

That distribution plays a key role in building and sustaining a brand, particularly in rural markets, is undeniable. Consider the case of LG, again in India. It entered India late, in 1997, after all the global majors it competes with, e.g., Samsung, Whirlpool, GE, and Sony, were already in India. Yet, in a short span of 5-years, LG had catapulted to the number 1 spot in refrigerators, air-conditioners, and TVs. It did so by rapidly building sales offices around the country. While the companies it competed with had around 20 sales offices around the country LG had over 100. This support helped it to gain retail presence in over 15,000 outlets around the country and to be able to offer rapid response when it came to service. It has since complemented its retail footprint with its flagship LG Shoppes, which now number over 700 across India.

So, what’s the message? As MNCs eye and salivate over rural markets in the emerging economies, they need to step beyond the bigger population centers where they feel more comfortable. They need to build a deep and robust presence in rural distribution, through setting up offices through which to support a retail network. Only then can they hope to take a share of this potentially lucrative pie.