Yet when product performance and value added are questioned, product testing and testimonials can often serve as a powerful supplement, writes Larry Chao.

 As multinationals in Asia try to build value into their products and burnish brand lustre, they face an onslaught of hungry competitors, eager to steal market share by touting lower cost. Such is the case in the US$100-billion (Bt3.8-trillion) global aftermarket for replacement printer inkjet and toner cartridges, where original-equipment printer-manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard must battle legitimate third-party print-cartridge re-manufacturers and refillers.

These third-party alternatives, often local or regional players, claim to offer customers lower-priced generic and "house-brand" inkjet and toner-cartridge supplies, but rigorous product-testing and customer testimonials have indicated there are hidden costs beyond the initial purchase price.

Last month, Hewlett-Packard Asia Pacific conducted a series of press conferences in four cities - Singapore, Sydney, Beijing and Seoul - to dispel the myth that their inkjet and toner print cartridges were overpriced. As part of these one-day events, Hewlett-Packard invited the IT press corps from around the region to witness first hand side-by-side demonstrations of HP products versus competitors. As part of these events, they also invited customers and industry experts to provide their point of view based on actual experiences and product testing.

The result was a simple message: while the purchase price of HP's products may be higher than third-party alternatives, the total cost of operating an HP printer, when measured against acceptable pages produced, is dramatically less.

"Buying ink is not like buying sugar," says John Solomon, vice president of HP Asia Pacific's imaging and printing aftermarket business, which supplies the region with replacement inkjet and toner print cartridges.

"Ink is a high-technology product, not a commodity. The quality of ink and number of pages produced ("yield") is what is important, not the amount of ink or size of print cartridge."

Many independent industry testers agree with this assertion. Take, for example, David Spencer, president of Spencer & Associates, an independent laboratory and research house based in New York that provides comparative benchmarking and evaluation to the printing industry.

"Ink formulation is critical, because it is used for more than just printing," he explains. "It is also used to maintain the printer in working order.

The ink serves to lubricate and clean printing heads between printing runs. If the heads are crusty with ink, they can clog and produce ink blotches." The problem is that many people are misled by flawed product-testing, which compares printer output based on continuous runs. In reality, few use their printers this way.

"Printers are used periodically, and therefore ink purity and composition are important to prime printer heads before runs," he adds.

Evidence from Quality Logic, another US-based third-party independent tester, confirms Spencer's findings with quantitative results.

According to their data, HP inkjet cartridges produced 25 per cent more satisfactory printed pages than comparable remanufactured cartridges. Moreover, they discovered that 80 per cent of all third-party colour cartridges either failed during operation or were delivered to customers already defective.

Client testimonials offer further confirmation. George Vastardis, senior support-group manager in the Philippines operation of outsourcer American Data Exchange Corporation, described his experience during the Singapore press conference:

"We replaced our HP ink cartridges with third-party remanufactured refills to save on printing costs, but the quality of our printing suffered.

There was ink leaking from cartridges, uneven printing and even a power outage.

By the time we delivered an acceptable set of documents to our customer, we had spent much more on third-party cartridges than HP cartridges."

Product-testing and testimonials serve to differentiate a brand by comparing key product features and performance differences that are meaningful to target customers. It is a way of showcasing real technological innovations.

Says David Solomon: "Although our place is in the premium segment of the market, where customers are more concerned with quality and reliability than price, we still need to reinforce our unique value proposition."

Larry Chao is managing director of Chao Group Ltd, a strategy and organisation-change consultancy based in New York and Bangkok (www.chaogroup.com).