Every evening I visit my mother’s assisted living apartment, where we enjoy a double round of Family Feud followed by a night cap of Andy Griffith. For the past two months, every night at about 7:30 p.m. we are presented with a commercial for LG’s Signature OLED R television. I presume that the R stands for “rollable”. Because this tv unfurls and rises from a thin sleek base for viewing, fills the room with a large 65″ screen and then, descends back into its small box, leaving the room it is in unobstructed by the monitor.
Amazed by the tv, just as the ad intends, I immediately went to Amazon to read more about it and see how much it costs. It wasn’t on Amazon, nor on Best Buy. I googled and found product reviews that revealed the television’s price as a staggering $100,000. I knew it would be steep, but $100,000 was 4 or 5 times more than I had estimated.
Noticing that the reviews had come out 5 months ago, I looked for current pricing and only saw a link to contact LG if I wanted further information. I did and received an email in return.
It’s still $100,000, which is fine. My question is, why is LG promoting it? I understand carting it round to technology shows, as proof of concept, showing the world how far technology has come, but the commercials give the impression that the tv is ready for your living room. Clearly, it’s not, not unless you’re Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.
Not only does the ad show the television in a modest-sized apartment, rather than a mansion, it’s being used by two pre-school aged children, as if having a 100K screen babysit your kids while you’re in another room folding laundry is no big deal. Surely, LG can impress us with how innovative they are, without misleading us into thinking that innovation might be affordable, when it isn’t. Yes, you want to get people talking, but towards what end?
I can see exhibiting the tv during the Superbowl, to generate buzz for it, but why run an ad every night during Family Feud? The big prize on Family Feud is only $20,000, to be split by 5 people. Meaning, a contestant who wins big, only gets $4,000 individually. They’d have to win the jackpot 25 times to afford that television and the game show doesn’t allow it. Family Feud does not give rise to Ken Jennings millionaires. LG should be satisfied with pushing their $259 Stylo cell phone to game show audiences, not a tv that costs more than our condo.
Here is my own LG big screen tv:
The sharp picture, crisp sound and large screen on my personal LG was my pride and joy, until I saw the OLED-R and researched its price. Now, I just cry myself to sleep at night, knowing it’s forever beyond my grasp.
LG, leave the hoi polloi in peace. I thought your motto was, “Life’s Good,” not “Life’s too good for the likes of you.” Sir, this is a Wendy’s, not a haven for the 1%. Why torture me nightly with something that is out of my reach, when all I’m trying to figure out is whether Uncle Paul truly gave Steve Harvey a “good answer?”
I know LG is proud of their television. Howard Hughes was proud of the Spruce Goose. He showed it off to his millionaire friends. He didn’t parade it up and down middle class residential streets. He knew we couldn’t help him get that goose off the ground. Until technological advances are accessible to real purchasers, they belong in the lab or at exhibitions, not in commercials for the average electronic consumer.
And as far as technology goes, how advanced is this tv, really? If you spend enough money, you can probably make anything rollable. Throw a few million at General Motors and they can probably give you a car that curls up like a Tootsie roll. It’s only remarkable when you can combine innovation with function and price.
LG would do better simply reminding us that its product and development team is working on amazing projects, rather than fooling us into hoping that a rollable tv is in any common person’s foreseeable future. If you’re going to plague me with the same commercial every night, please make it about something I can pick up at Target.
