New Fridge Line Offers 22,000 Combinations
Kim Hyun-seok, president of Samsung Electronics' Consumer Electronics Business Division, unveiled the company’s new vision of customized home appliances at a media day event on June 4.
Kim said Samsung Electronics will from now on create customized home appliances tailored to the lifestyles and tastes of individual customers, including millennials.
First of all, Samsung Electronics changed the concept of refrigerators which have been considered a boring home appliance. Refrigerators are too big to be placed in living rooms. Their design has little changed. They have been usually white and made of stainless steel. But Samsung’s new-concept Bespoke Refrigerator offers consumers a wide range of choices. Consumers can assemble a refrigerator by choosing modules from 8 types of models, which range from one door to four doors, according to the number of family numbers, eating habits, lifestyles and kitchen types. Furthermore, they can choose a desired material and a color. As a result, the number of available combinations reaches up to 22,000. Even if you live alone and get married and have children, you only need to add one door or two doors without having to change your refrigerator. If the mood of your home changes after relocation, the refrigerator door can be replaced with another material or color. "The ultimate goal is to provide unlimited choices to consumers," Kim said.
Samsung Electronics called its new vision the “Project Prism.” It selected 3Cs as the keywords representing its new vision. They are “creation,” not manufacturing, “customization,” not standardization, and “collaboration” with other industries.
Samsung Electronics also laid out a plan to produce all future products under the vision of the Project Prism. "I would like to introduce two or three Project Prism appliances in the year," said Kim. "The Bispoke Refrigerator is a product with the focus put on hardware and interior. We will present a total end-to-end solution that provides new consumer experiences by combining hardware and specific software," Kim said. The Bespoke Refrigerator will retail for 1,049,000 won to 4,840,000 won per unit.
Samsung Electronics will focus on promoting Bespoke Refrigerator as a customized home appliance. "When a consumer comes to a store to buy a refrigerator, he or she usually starts by thinking, “How much can I spend to buy a refrigerator?’ But from now on, we will recommend to a consumer a product that meets his or her family type – a single-person household, a newly married couple or a family with babies," said Song Myung-ju, a director at the Consumer Electronics Business Division of Samsung Electronics. “We are planning to carry out customized marketing to sell refrigerators with customized colors and designs.”