Electronics giant Thomson ready to launch brands in UK

French-owned consumer electronics giant Thomson Multimedia is finally launching its Thomson brand in the UK this week, three months later than scheduled.

The company originally planned a pre-Christmas launch, but delayed it because not all the products were ready. As the world’s fourth largest electronics group, and the world leader in digital television, the company already sells products in this country under the Ferguson brand name.

It plans to capitalise on the digital communications revolution. The new range consists of TV sets and video recorders, and will be expanded to include digital video disc players, which can carry up to eight hours of video information on disc, and digital decoders. They are being marketed as innovative and high-performance products, while Ferguson will continue to cover the core market of easy-to-use TVs, video and audio goods at competitive prices.

The switch to digital terrestrial TV from analogue transmission in the UK, providing viewers with dozens more channels, means digital decoders will be needed for millions of TV sets. A framework for the switch has been laid down in the Broadcasting Bill, currently going through Parliament.

Publicis has been given an advertising brief for the new Thomson range to add to its existing Ferguson account.