Officials of Panasonic told Japanese media today the company has directed about 10,000 managerial-level employees to buy a certain number of Panasonic products by July 2009. The ‘‘Buy Panasonic’’ campaign is an answer to shrinking sales worldwide that have eroded Panasonic’s profits significantly in past months.

Executives who are high up in the food chain must purchase Panasonic products worth at least $2,200 in the next four months. Lower-level managers are fine with buying Blu-ray players, TVs or fridges worth $1,100.

The campaign is voluntary but I wouldn’t be too surprised to see the vast majority of people addressed follow what the top management decided. Employees outside Japan are unaffected by this move.

Panasonic is expecting a whopping $4 billion in annual losses and already decided to slash 15,000 jobs worldwide.