HDTV Survey: Continued Consumer Confusion

Despite the best efforts of people like your trusty blogger, consumer confusion is perhaps as high as it's ever been when it comes to understand HD technology. Hitachi commissioned a survey that turned up some rather bleak results including:

• 66% of consumers are not comfortable explaining options such as 720p, 1080i and 1080p
• 62% are not comfortable explaining options such as DLP, LCD and Plasma

On the plus side, 78% of consumers are interested in purchasing HDTV for their next TV buy. 60% of those surveyed say picture quality is the most important factor in a new TV purchase; brand was second (11%) and screen size was third (9%).

To some extent, I think this is a marketing problem as much as anything. When TV manufacturers and retailers tout "1080p" as a selling point, how is a consumer expected not to be confused? It's really Marketing 101 -- sell benefits, not features. 1080p means nothing to most people yet it's probably the most overused term in HD marketing today.

I remember a TV ad campaign that one of the manufacturers (I think it was Samsung) ran several months back. The narrator ended with something along the lines of "get your 1080p L-C-D H-D-T-V now" (drawn out just like that) and it honestly seemed like they were trying to cram as many technical acronyms in one sentence as possible. How on earth they thought that would actually appeal to the average consumer is beyond me.

The good news is that despite not understanding all of the technical jargon, consumers definitely want to buy HDTVs. Now the industry just needs to do a better job of helping them figure it all out.