February 9, 2001 – (Tampa) TFC.NET Corp today announced findings from the new longitudinal brand study called TFC/IC Brand Position Panel - Multimedia Projectors in North America and Europe 2001. This study is the premiere longitudinal projector brand position study and was conducted across two continents, dozens of languages and all major projector brands simultaneously.

The names of companies involved in the multimedia projector market include brands with traditional strength and name recognition in sectors such as consumer electronics, computers, printer peripherals, display & imaging, film, and office supply. "Projection Convergence is one of the major trends in this industry," says Paul Martin, President TFC.NET Corp, a leading display market research and consulting company. "Projection convergence", defined as the merging of commercial presentation market and the consumer home entertainment market, will take those who strictly serve the business-to-business companies into the realm of the unknown – the consumer market, while giving consumer electronic companies a renewed weapon to dominate – their brand.

For years, brand strength, brand position, and brand value have been known to play a dominant role in the consumer markets - and for good reason. Strong brands, brands that are instantly remembered and familiar, are also the first products that consumers think of when opting to purchase. Speaking about the companies with strong brand recognition, "It’s for them to lose the sale", says Martin. "Brand alone isn’t enough to convince buyers to buy your product, but if your name is not on the list of brands to consider, you’ll have a tough time getting the sale."

Brand recall and recognition is important, yet the TFC/IC Brand Position Panel - Multimedia Projectors in North America and Europe 2001 goes beyond Brand Awareness to study the perceptions that we all have of the projector companies and their products. Convenient, robust, well-designed, high-quality, innovative, durable, easy-to-use, economic, susceptible-to-repair, expensive, traditional, trendy, are some of the dimensions that are coalesced into TFC’s Brand Score Cardä and presented in this study. "The Brand Score Cardä makes it instantly apparent what your company’s strengths and weaknesses are in the ultimate consumer’s mind." says Tanya Townsend, TFC’s Manager of Survey Research, "The inclusion of so many competitors’ Brand Score Cardsä provides the framework for hearty analysis of your own company’s triumphs or shortcomings."

In order to assist all projector manufacturers in navigating through the difficult waters of consumer markets, TFC.NET Corp (Tampa) and InterConnection-IC (Vienna) teamed up to complete this unusually comprehensive study of over 250 pages. The TFC/IC Brand Position Panel - Multimedia Projectors in North America and Europe, reveals which companies have the strongest start in the race to capture the brand loyalty of users and potential customers of multimedia projectors.

To create a rigorous, scientific, multinational study of this caliber and to be able to probe more deeply, telephone interviews were conducted in the local dialect of over 600 heavy users and potential users of projectors. Research methods were coordinated, allowing valid comparison among the data analyzed in both the North American portions and the European portions of the study, in this way, differences across cultures becomes easily visible.

The North American Study (120+ pages) and the European study (120+ pages) contain evaluations and comparisons of brand recall and recognition, brand profiles, multidimensional analysis (factor analysis, cluster analysis) of over 30 major projector brands. In addition, North American purchasing influencers and gatekeepers, as well as end-user purchasing criteria are revealed. The volume of data is condensed, explained, and summarized at the end of each section and at the end of the study.

The brands surveyed include: 3M, Acer, Apollo, Barco, Boxlight, Canon, Compaq, CTX, Davis, Digital Projection, Dukane, Eiki, Electrohome, Elmo, Epson, Fujitsu, Hitachi, InFocus, JVC, Kodak, Liesegang, Lightware, Megapower, Mitsubishi, Mustek, NEC, Nikon, Panasonic, Philips, Plus, Polaroid, Proxima, Sanyo, Seleco, Sharp, Sony, Telex, Toshiba and Viewsonic.

The North American Study contains brand perceptions of 300 respondents from U.S. and Canada, while the European Study contains perceptions of 304 respondents from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, France, Benelux, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. The cost of the 250 page combined NA and Euro study is $12,500 (discounted for existing customers). The study is in MS Powerpoint 2000 format.

For further information or to purchase the TFC/IC Brand Position Panel - Multimedia Projectors in North America and Europe, contact Tanya Townsend, TFC.NET Corp, ttownsend@tfc.net, tel: (843) 769-4378 or Paul Martin, paul.martin@tfc.net tel (512) 244-0774 (Austin), fax (813)-880-0603 or visit the website at http://austin.tfc.net/BPP.

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