Sony Shrugs Off Bad Press - Still A Strong Brand 281
netbuzz writes "The Sony brand name took a beating last year over all those burning batteries and the rootkit fallout, right? Wrong, at least according to a recent survey of 2,000 adults who are apparently willing to forgive just about anything ... if you give them the right reason. Other technology companies, most anyway, also fare well in the brand survey. From the article: 'According to the survey, the Sony brand finished a gaudy ninth among the "Top 20 Winners for 2006," sandwiched comfortably between a couple of saintly American icons: Oprah and the National Football League. Moreover, the respondents see Sony climbing to No. 4 among this year's gainers, right above Amazon and eBay. Moral: Build a better PlayStation and the American consumer will forgive all else.'"
Yeah, right. (Score:4, Informative)
"... reduced headcount by 10,000 ahead of schedule. It is also on track with factory closures, asset disposals and winnowing its product line-up
It's good to read that things are going so well.
Simplicity (Score:3, Informative)
90% of American consumers, know nothing or could care less, about DRM, proprietary hardware, etc. so, as long as they like a product, they will buy it. If the product is over-priced, for their specific incomes, they will not buy it.
The PS3 is a good value based on the hardware, involved, but most people don't care about that because they are not technically savvy. Most do not care if the PS3 includes a BR drive, either. People but consoles to play games. The public, at large, do not buy consoles to install Linux, to play around with homebrew, mess with clusters, etc. The crowd that does those things are in the minority, unfortunately. The PS3 is simply priced too high, for the average consumer and, is overkill, in terms of their needs. Force-feeding BR, which jacked up the price, big-time, was a mistake. Microsoft chose to modularize the 360, in terms of HD-DVD, and that was an excellent idea. They gave the consumer the choice and that kept the price down. I can afford the PS3, but I can't justify $600 for it. The only reason I'd buy it is for the BR, but I am in the minority on that one. I bought a 360 and the HD-DVD drive. I am very happy with both products and the entire service, as a whole.
I am not a fanboi of either company/system, but I have to admit, Sony has made some major mistakes this time around. The proof is out there.
Back to the American audience. I am American, if it matters. I will speak of Americans, here, as they since I am not a sheep:)
The majority of Americans are sheep, know very little and/or don't care enough to learn about the things, that matter around them. From politics, to technology, to rights as citizens, to government, and everything else, in between. They will take anything they like, regardless of it causes cancer, makes them fat, infected with DRM, etc. if it satiates their "must consume" at all cost mindset. You have to know that DRM keeps getting worse and worse because the majority of American, and the world at large, do not care enough to speak with their wallets, in terms of not buying such fucked up products. Corporations are slowly, but surely, ruling the world, making the laws, and are no longer selling us products, instead, only issuing us temporary licenses to use the products
Wrong moral (Score:3, Informative)
The correct moral is that bloggers are a vocal minority and not trend-setting taste makers as previously thought.
Ask a geek (Score:3, Informative)
The manipulation of subjectively perceived quality by manufacturers is inversely proportional to knowledge, particularly technical knowledge, of the consumer. A favorite example is bad audio gear which has enjoyed a reputation far higher than observation allows. Prime examples: a certain speaker manufacturer, and a certain absurdly high-priced-cable manufacturer.
People can be fooled by what sound like legitimate technical specs which are, in fact, techno-babble. Virtually meaningless wattage "standards" for amplifiers, for example, can turn a 50-watt RMS amplifier into one that puts out several hundred watts. A geek knows there's no such thing as "music power".
If you don't know enough to avoid getting burned, talk to a geek that does. And find a way to reward him/her for the studying that went into that expertise.
Re:No brainer (Score:3, Informative)
Just like they shut down and went out of business for a while when Nintendo sued them for breaking the law.
What Lik Sang was doing, is actually illegal. They were selling equipment that was certified for use in the european union. The counter point is that it was the same equipment as the european units, just a different product number. So while the equipment should be perfectly safe, it still hadn't been certified.
Lik Sang closed it doors because they knew they:
A) Were in the wrong, even if only on a technicality
B) Would have to spend money to defend themselves
C) Would likely end up fined for breaking the law
They decided the potential losses on the lawsuit outweighed the potential gain of remaining in business and shut down their operations. There's plenty of blame to go around her (for Sony, Lik Sang, and the EU) but Sony's executives do have a fiduciary responsibility to it's shareholders to take legal action against a potential competitor who is illegally distributing their product.
Then again, I never bought anything from Lik Sang, I might actually care that they shut down if I had.
Re:What was expensive was buying the survey (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not saying that for sure there is a campaign, but if there is, well, I'm just happy to have played a small part in screwing it up. People in advertising, marketing and PR are worse than spammers or ambulance chasing lawyers and they deserve to have all their plans ruined, their hopes squashed and their names dragged through the mud.