Meet the visionaries
Meet the visionaries Exclusive Interview Boo-Keun Yoon President & General Manager, Visual Display Division Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. We all love to DreaM! saMsung Keynote sets an optiMistic (anD huMan) tone for the ce MarKet By Richard Barnes Consumers continue to demand more emotional and self-expressive experiences from their technology products today. Samsung calls this phenomenon "Digital Humanism", and this is at the heart of President Boo-Keun Yoon’s keynote at IFA today. We asked Mr Yoon to give us a foretaste of his presentation… The technology products of the future must reflect individual values, lifestyle and cultural environment. Samsung's pursuit of the promise of "Digital Humanism" is the fundamental philosophy behind our future product plans. Samsung will introduce its latest products and highlight, through an "e-Story", the core values of our upcoming product portfolio: Essence, Engagement, Expression, Experience, Eco. Your upcoming product portfolio is based on what you term “Essence, Engagement, Expression, Experience, Eco”. Can you please explain this? "Digital Humanism" philosophy is based on five key elements: Essence: Products’ core values will be strengthened, so they deliver at the highest levels of performance expectation; Engagement: Products will be networkable and interoperable, so that consumers can share content, messages, and their daily experiences with others; Expression: Consumers will have greater choice in colour and design, to better reflect personality and environment; Experience: Products will emphasize intuitive interface and ease of use; Eco: Products will reflect consumers’ growing affinity for environmental awareness, emphasizing eco-friendly materials and energy savings. In the past, our focus was to embed the most advanced technology into our products. Today, our priority is to create harmony between our products and the five E that make the consumer experience more meaningful - and that is what Digital Humanism is. You have been with Samsung for more than 30 years in various positions… Tell us a little about your past… and what would you say were your biggest achievements to date? I first joined the TV R&D Team and since then I have held various positions including at the European Lab, the Business Process Innovation Group and the Global Operations Team at the Visual Display Division. This rich experience gives me broad insights and helps me a lot in making critical decisions as President. My biggest achievement to date is the success of Samsung LED TV. I believe the success of Samsung LED TV is primarily due to our own Crystal Engine. At home, I have LED, LCD and PDP TVs so I can compare the experience and I clearly feel the difference of picture quality. There is a 'natural mode' in LED TV that is so vivid that makes me feel like I am in an alternative reality. I believe our customers can also feel the difference in picture quality and colours, and we have the results to prove it. You have claimed that you would like Samsung to move into the top position for brand recognition as a CE company by 2011. How do you aim to do that? What would you say is your “innovation philosophy”? When you change your way of thinking, your behaviour is changed, and so is your performance. Because of our salespeople's positive attitude and strong confidence that we are a 16 www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Friday, 4 th September 2009
Meet the visionaries global leader and Samsung was able to achieve the leadership in the TV industry - first in Europe and now in the US as well. Similarly, our development team strongly believes that we can develop better TV than competitors, and we did - from the Samsung Bordeaux LCD NIELS LEIBBRANDT Senior Manager Technology Marketing, Sony Consumer Marketing Europe, United Kingdom & Chairman European Promotion Committee, Blu-ray Disc Association. Ever felt the desire to create and perfect your own Home-Theatre system? What started as a hobby for Niels Leibbrandt and small company in designing and selling custom made speakers at the age of 20, turned out to become the start of a professional career. Now years later, Leibbrandt is in the unique position to co-operate intensively with some of the most respected companies in the industry on best High-Definition home entertainment standard ever created. Niels Leibbrandt was elected Chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association European promotion Committee per January 2009 for a two-year appointment. Leibbrandt brings a wealth of experience and modern marketing methods in the arena of introducing new entertainment formats. Before working within Sony Consumer Marketing Europe, on the marketing of new technologies and innovations, he was promoting home entertainment standards like DVD+RW within Royal Philips Electronics. Born in the Netherlands, he holds a B.Sc. as Commercial Technical Engineer and a M.Sc. in Business Marketing. TV to the "new species" of Samsung LED TV. "Ownership" is also key to my philosophy. During my thirty years working in the TV industry, I took care of it as it is my own business. Having that in mind, I have affection to every single TV that we have developed and sold. These TVs are like my own children. Since I love my job, I always think about how to continue to improve and innovate our offering and that focus and dedication pay off. You have been instrumental at Samsung in developing partnerships with companies like Yahoo in order to get the Internet on TV, and to this end, you said this was the future of TV. Just how important will this “convergence” become? What’s the roadmap for that? I believe that Internet services on the TV will have a major impact on TV sales in the near future; Actually we are already seeing that functionalities like Medi@2.0 are becoming more and more demanded by customers and are turning into an important differentiation point for TV manufacturers. With the continuous growth Blu-ray is again among the hot topics at this year’s IFA. Since making its breakthrough last year, the format has been growing strongly despite the difficult economic situation. The key reason for this is undoubtedly the fascination that Blu-ray provides: stunning cinema quality pictures in sharp HD quality, excellent sound, huge storage capacity and ease of use make Blu-ray a fashionable and cutting-edge medium – and not just in home cinema. It therefore comes as no surprise that Blu-ray will once again make a good impression at IFA 2009. What is surprising is how many Blu-ray innovations there are at the show. «The partners of the Blu-ray Disc Association are displaying lots of innovative products and features that not only raise the bar even higher in terms of picture and sound quality, but also provide potential new uses and intelligent solutions for the key interface between home cinema, IT and the internet», says Niels Leibbrandt, Chairman of the BDA EU Promotion Committee. In other words, IFA shows the full potential and complete diversity of the Blu-ray standard. However, as well as being at the forefront, the Blu-ray technology is also well positioned in terms of range. As a result of of online services, Internet infrastructure and usage, and the desire of consumers to be able to get online at any time and from any device, we see many reasons to believe that the Internetconnected TV market will grow exponentially in the coming years and that connectivity of televisions will be more and more valued by customers as Web functionalities on TV sets evolve.When saying that convergence is the future of TV, I believe that convergence will be a major element of competition between TV manufacturers in the next few years, and Samsung will be doing everything possible to be a leader in this market. I am sure that our strong assets in a wide range of devices, televisions, Blu-ray Disc players, mobile phones or set-top-boxes, will help us create new ways of enjoying multimedia content and are actively working in this field. Finally, how important is IFA as an event for Samsung, and why? Along with CES, IFA is the most important global fair in the TV industry. At IFA, we usually layout our road map and direction of strategic products while at CES we unveil those new products. IFA has its own European colour - it offers a unique combination of emotion, practicality and ecoawareness that makes IFA very meaningful event for TV industry. Hall 20 / Stand 101 IFA International Keynotes 2009 Boo-Keun Yoon, President & General Manager Visual Display Division Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd 4th September 2009 @ 15:00 - 15:45 Towards Digital Humanism; Dreams Made Real lower license costs, more hardware and software manufacturers have joined us on the BD journey worldwide – a major reason why the number of companies embracing Blu-ray continues to rise. Therefore, the range of players in all price classes and the number of available film and music titles are also growing. The wider choice, greater competition and additional sales channels are opening up new customer segments – and ensure constantly rising demand. For instance, more and more film fans are discovering the format’s qualities. «Word of Blu-ray’s capabilities and performance has spread throughout Europe», says Niels Leibbrandt. There is already a Blu-ray player in close to one in ten households in the EU, if you count Sony’s PS 3 and it is expected that 20% ADVERTORIAL Blu-ray Disc Technology wiTh greaT PoTenTial of European homes will be BD enabled by the end of 2011.The IFA, which traditionally sends out strong growth signals and motivates new sales, and the forthcoming Christmas business are two of the main reasons why the BDA expects a positive market development within 12 months – the Blu-ray market is booming. «I am sure that with the Bluray presence at IFA, we will also carry this momentum through into 2010», says Niels Leibbrandt. IFA International • Friday, 4 th September 2009 www.ifa-international.org 17
