Samsung's Weedfald Takes On New Role

Samsung Electronics America’s Peter Weedfald, a champion of interactive marketing at the company, has taken on an additional role that will focus his attention on the company’s booming consumer electronics division. His new title will be SVP of sales and marketing for the division.

In the new position, Weedfald will spearhead all branding, marketing, and sales initiatives for Samsung’s HDTVs, camcorders, DVD players, digital audio, home appliance, and set top box product lines. In addition to those new responsibilities, he will carry on with his duties as SVP of Samsung’s North America Strategic Marketing team.

“Our consumer electronics division has tripled its revenues over the last three years, reaching in excess of $2 billion in 2004,” Weedfald said in an interview with ClickZ News. “I’ve been given the great opportunity to oversee all sales and marketing for this division in a year where we expect to continue to see dramatic growth.”

Weedfald brings a distinguished track record, specifically in interactive strategy, to the new position. His achievements to date include building a national advertising network of 425 Web sites that generate in excess of 1.5 billion impressions per month. He also established a corporate good will campaign, raising $4 million with the help of celebrities like Jon Bon Jovi and leading retailers like Sears on behalf of selected charities.

Prior to joining Samsung in 2001, Weedfald served as COO and EVP at Bigfoot Interactive. He has also served as EVP and general manager of Web appliances at ViewSonic Corp., where he was responsible for worldwide product management, marketing communications, strategic partnerships, and Web-based product sales. Before joining ViewSonic, he worked in various executive publisher positions at Ziff Davis Publishing for such magazines and Web sites as Computer Shopper, Windows Sources, PC Magazine, and PC Week, among others.

While he did not specify plans for the consumer electronics division’s interactive strategy, Weedfald remains bullish on the potential of online advertising to produce sales on- and offline.

“I view the Internet as Darwin on speed,” Weedfald said. “It’s the fastest unionization of push and pull on the planet, in terms of pushing out to consumers online and pulling them into the retail store.”