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Published on September 19, 2007

It will be the company's second attempt to market the German-made appliances, including ovens, steam ovens, microwave cookers, cooker hoods, refrigerators, wine coolers, coffee-makers and dishwashing machines. It admits it failed to build brand awareness in the Thai market on the last occasion.

Managing director Vega Hernandez said the company's main brand, Teka, which targets middle-income customers, had already gained strong awareness among corporate clients in the property sector and that this would allow the company easily to introduce another brand with higher product quality.

The company plans to arrange marketing events, including exclusive parties and cooking shows, advertise more in magazines and attend trade exhibitions more frequently than before. But she declined to reveal the firm's marketing budget.

Hernandez said the campaign would focus on sales to individual customers, because strong brand awareness among customers would convince project developers to use

the products. However, there are no plans to showcase Kuppersbusch products in retail channels, because they feature specific functions that must be explained to customers by specialists.

The company's corporate customers include property developers Land and Houses, Q House, Golden Land, Property Perfect and Sansiri. Further deals are being negotiated with property developers in Rayong, Pattaya and Phuket.

Kuppersbusch has 10 products with prices ranging from the five digits to Bt1 million. The brand's main competitors are Miele, Gaggenau and other players in the built-in kitchen-appliances market.

Hernandez said the market was worth about Bt2 billion, of which Bt200 million came from high-end products.

Teka, which was formed in Thailand 12 years ago, has three brands: Teka, Kuppersbusch and Silestone. It expects to achieve sales of Bt500 million this year, to which the Teka brand will contribute 92 per cent, Kuppersbusch 5 per cent and Silestone 3 per cent.

Nitida Asawanipont, The Nation