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.'"
No brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
Sturgeon's Revelation (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the 10% who see through the BS that are worth listening to.
-Eric
Sony (Score:2, Insightful)
No such thing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad but true..
Marketing Lesson #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
It takes a whole lot to piss off a customer. DRM and broken batteries certainly isn't close enough. This is why Marketeers get all hot and sweaty about being the first brand that people think of. You can abuse your customers and they keep coming back for more. Lesser brand consumers generally won't tollerate the abuse and switch to sony and still get abused, but since it's "sony" they take it.
This one reason why Apple's switching campaign while noble and a general good for all who switch from Windows is so slow. It's why consumers of all kinds who switch to Linux won't switch because windows has some problems. They'll switch because of an application they can't get on windows. Given the way Microsoft is tightening the DRM and market segmenting nooses, most consumers will simply tollerate the abuse.
Lesson #1: Be #1 in the hearts and minds
Re:No brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is that people will forgive anything, at least if there's no personal memory of pain involved. I'd be willing to bet that those whose batteries caught fire aren't going to think so fondly of the Sony brand from now on. Everyone else will just think "oh, they must have fixed it by now" and move on.
Re:Not So Sure (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course they are! Do you damn Apple for not releasing OSX on PCs? Microsoft for not allowing Halo on Playstation hardware? A Ford dealer for not selling you a Nissan 350Z?
Companies exist to turn a profit based on a percieved customer need or want. Sony invested quite a lot of money into the development of Blue-Ray and is trying to recover from a gaping finacial wound brought on by that and the PS3. They would be very, very stupid to allow a dual-format player to exist this early in the game, which would put money directly into the pockets of the competetion. What you want isn't viable for Sony to recoup R&D losses; they will not go bankrupt just so you don't have to make a format choice. It's not evil, it's business.
Re:No brainer (Score:3, Insightful)
One reason for this difference in news coverage, I think, is that the mainstream news editors don't understand tech news all that well, so they err on the side caution. After all, they don't want to get sued for libel by a company like Sony with deep pockets.
Image only can sell lots (Score:3, Insightful)
When you go into an electronics store and notice that Sony televisions are placed in their own private sections aways from the others.
When you go into a video game store and notice that the PlayStation brands are located at the front of the store and the rest are in small corners or at the back, behind the PS3 advertisements that are hanging on the ceiling.
When you go into a large retailer and notice that PlayStation games take twice the amount of shelf space for the same amount of games available than it's competitors.
Those are the signs that say that Sony "dictates" to some retailers how to put them in a positive way and how they "manipulate" their own image.
Here's Mr. Jow average's reasoning:
The product in front of my eyes in the diamond incrusted mahogany display that cost 1000$ has GOT to be better than the one in the back of the store, on the lower metallic cheap shelf with dust all over it that is priced at 500$. I don't need to do research, it's fairly obvious...
Re:No brainer (Score:2, Insightful)
Of potential PS3 owners probably about 10%-20% know that the PS3 has been released and know what it costs, and many of those are (probably) anticipating a quick price drop; if the price remains high for awhile, and sales do not pick up, eventually it will be well known that the PS3 is a flop. If Blu-Ray doesn't take off, and HD-DVD is adopted people will not be buying Sony HD-DVD players (because they don't exist) and will likely notice that "Sony's Blu-Ray format" was a flop.
I'm not saying that these things will happen, but a couple of high profile mistakes which the general public is made aware of can dramatically impact the brand of a company.
Re:Sony (Score:1, Insightful)
Why mod the parent troll? I avoid sony, and I encourage others to do the same.
Yep - only techies really bash Sony.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "techies" have been complaining about them and their proprietary, incompatible product releases since at least the era of the Sony "minidisc" format. But the public doesn't really care. If a Sony product turns out to be a "dud", it sort of fades away into non-existence, and their more successful products are still all over the store shelves, regularly recommended by magazine reviewers, store salespeople, and satisfied consumers.
"Techies" had nothing good to say about Sony's proprietary "memory stick" technology either. Yet I bought one of their camcorders (a TRV-730) which has proven to be an excellent buy as the years have passed, and it uses a memory stick for the still photo feature in it. Truthfully, when it was new, I preferred the physical format of the memory stick to the alternatives. The "SD" format is pretty darn similar in thickness, weight, and overall size
They're also a major motion picture studio, releasing quite a few films the public wants to watch and purchase, and some of the slimmer, ultraportable Sony Vaio laptops are among the "best in class". Of course, the PS2 wasn't exactly a marketing failure either - and I maintain that the PS3 has plenty of time to enjoy a good success too, if the right game titles start coming out for it and the price comes down a bit. (And why wouldn't it? PS2 prices had several significant drops over the years.)
Re:Sturgeon's Revelation (Score:0, Insightful)
My, how very smug and elitist of you.
I wonder if you're in the elite 10% or if you just think that you are. After all, I bet that nearly every single person in the 90% is sure that they're actually in the 10%. It's something to think about.
immune to democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
I've suggested several times in the past that it appears that democracy (as well as commercial democracy, voting with your dollars) breaks down around 10e6 to 10e8 scales. Once a governed population reaches this size, it can no longer assume that reasoned debate will be able to sway casual opinion at all. Once a customer marketplace reaches that size, no boycotts are effective and bad products don't change anything in the general perception, since so few people actually inform themselves. A politician or a company would have to be caught red-handed burying razorblades in the babyfood before the mass public will even notice and associate badness with the politician or company in question.
Blind fealty to parties and brands just compound this situation. A politician who is caught shredding the constitution is forgiven merely because they are in the favored party, as if that were salient. A technologically dangerous product is forgiven merely because the company spends a ton of cash on those "lifestyle" branding ads that don't even talk about their product anymore, completely contrary to logic.
Re:Sturgeon's Revelation (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is it Eric's comment gets modded as insightful? All he did was post a snide comment that seemed more in line with something an Elitist would say, rather than anything that actually adds to the conversation.
And by and large, this reflects a deeper attitude in some (it would be a stretch to say most of you, but I digress...) in thinking that "you" are better than the average person, or in this particular case, the average consumer.
Now, really, ask yourself. Should this rootkit business matter to your average consumer?
No. For the majority of customers who buy things from Sony, they know they can trust Sony to offer a reasonably high-quality electronics product at a reasonable cost. And, like any other company, Sony can make mistakes (see the batteries). Shit happens. Big deal. Moreso to the point, there might have been bad faith on the part of Sony, but by and large, they are given the benefit of the doubt (as they should be given, I might add. The scope of the problem was not large enough to necessitate a mass recall, at the time. Now, different story).
Be that as it may, when talking about things like brands, it's a good idea to listen to lots of people (Imagine, the value of a construct created by people being evaluated by.... people!). And it's comments like the above which just passes off some (again, not most) of the Slashdot crowd as smug elitists who care about things that don't really matter.
Re:immune to democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No such thing.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They have a saying for that (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you assume that Blu-Ray would prevail over HD-DVD, or if either of them will be successful at all?
There are several possible outcomes which should be considered:
There are dozens of other possible outcomes that I haven't even listed
Blu-Ray is not ensured success and a lot of its greatest strengths (like greater exclusive studio support) were gained under the assumption that the PS3 was going to be 'super successful'. Remember that most of the studios would have exclusively backed Blu-Ray when the PS3 was supposed to launch in Spring 2006, when that went away studios continued to support Blu-Ray because Sony was going to sell 2 Million PS3 systems at launch, an additional 2 Million units by the end of 2006 and have a total of 6 Million systems sold by March 1st 2007.
Hypothetically speaking, in March Sony may only have sold 3 Million PS3 systems worldwide and Microsoft could announce the Core XBox 360 being discontinued, the Bundle being priced at $300 and a HD-DVD compatible XBox 360 for $400.
Re:Marketing Lesson #1 (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay now look. I have two points to make. The lesser one is that OSX is not necessarily a general good for all who switch from Windows. I use both daily, side by side, I use them both all day, and I am ordering software for the PC so I don't have to use the stupid fucking MacOS any more. It is horribly inconsistent, it is not very reliable (without doing anything but running some standard applications I've repeatedly got this system into a state where it must be rebooted to function correctly) and frankly it is not worth the money if you are capable of building PC clones. The Macbook Pro would be my fantasy machine if only it did not have the ATI graphics which work well on the mac but for which the drivers are complete and utter crap on both Windows and Linux.
The greater point is that there is no nobility involved in getting customers to switch to your product. Apple isn't doing this because of altruism. They're running an advertising campaign exhorting people to switch and talking up the many virtues of their operating system. That's noble?
Re:No brainer (Score:2, Insightful)
The problems have to be something that can be sensationalized in the main stream media before they become damaging...or at least make for a good viral email warning ("Sonya Soandso had her Sony Vaio in the back seat of her car. The battery exploded, killing the three occupants." type of thing). Once the media latches on, sensationalizes it and starts damning the company responsible, then does the damage occur.
The rootkit was (is) essentially innocuous to most computer users...it was there with the rest of the spyware and other crap infecting their machine and they really didn't know or care. It's the minority Slashdot types that were the ones who knew better and actually cared. Had the vulnerability resulted in successful mass identity theft or other monetary loss that most people could understand, the results would have been much different.
The failure rate on the batteries was too low to create much of a stir. It only made news because the mechanism of the failure resulted in personal injury. Had one in maybe ten batteries exhibited this characteristic, then it would have been all over the news like bad Tylenol.
Bottom line, not enough people felt the effects of the problems, and of those who did, most didn't understand the cause, or who was to blame for that matter.Consumers are dumb (Score:3, Insightful)
The average consumer is dumb. He will buy everything, not even bothering to check what the company he is buying from is actually doing to him. Vendor lock-in doesn't exist to him, at best he'll ponder whether that means he has to get outta the mall before they close.
The attention span of a goldfish is actually longer than theirs. Now that I ponder it, it seems the average consumer is also the average voter.
Heck. The average person is just utterly stupid.
Sorry for the rant, it's just what I feel when I read stuff like that.
Re:No brainer (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from the Sony battery recall, can you name five other recalls in the last year? Can you name two? How about one? People have short memories unless they were personally affected, and often don't consider it an issue unless the effect hurt them in some way, like the fires you mentioned. Since the number personally hurt is usually a tiny percentage, the company doesn't have a lot to fear.
TW
Re:No brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost everybody associates the problem with Dell, not with Sony. Quite honestly, they are right to. Dell sold the batteries, and they should have tested them to see if they were faulty. They also should have designed their chargers to prevent the problem.
Almost nobody with an exploding Sony battery purchased a package that said Sony on it anywhere.
Re:Simplicity (Score:3, Insightful)
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
That is so right and so wrong all at the same time when it comes to video game systems.
It doesn't matter if the platform is poorly designed, unreliable, or over priced (to some extent). If the system plays the games that people want to play, they'll buy it. I don't think that is "not caring enough to speak with their wallets". I think that is speaking with their wallets loudly and clearly. They just don't care about the same stuff you do. Most people would rather be happy than outraged.
Re:Not So Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
You're in luck. The part of Sony behind the PS3 seems to have heard your complaints.
The PS3
The group working on the PS3 have incorporated standards practically every place that made sense.
The few places they didn't:
Regarding Sony stance on Blu-Ray and their use of it in the PS3:
Yes, they decided to use an in-house developed format for the media storage. Since it WAS developed in-house I can hardly fault them for that.
Since even "poor PS3 sales" has already sold over 1 million units, thats quite a jump start on HD-DVD. Even if the system flops (which I hardly expect it to), If they ship 4-6 million units in North America in the next year, then they've probably cemented the lead for Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, unless stand-alone HD-DVD players drop in price dramatically, or the XBox360 add-on unit sells equally well.
Considering those possibilities its in Sony's best interest to hold on to the war of attrition as long as possible, since they probably can win it, with the help of the PS3.
Re:No brainer (Score:3, Insightful)
"The public" is slow. The perception comes from the 80s when everyone was drooling over the Walkman and Trinitron TVs. Which really were cool products.
Its Ignorance. and Stupidity (Score:2, Insightful)
Not surprising, really ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is right, the Playstation cures much bad press.
Re:No brainer (Score:1, Insightful)
So you're saying that if you pay me $1 million to make lollipops for you to sell in your store, and my lollipops give your customers AIDS, it's your fault, because the lollipops had your store's name on them? Score! When can we start doing business?
Re:Yep - only techies really bash Sony.... (Score:1, Insightful)
My GF is looking at buying a new camera. In past she has been Sony's dream customer: she owns a Vaio and bought a nice Cybershot to match the Sony Memory Stick reader in the Vaio. Now she's looking at buying a new camera and, obviously, Sony is the first brand she looks at. Big surprise: they've changed the stick format so she's would to have to buy new memory as well. It won't work with the laptop or existing camera unless she uses the provided adaptor or a card reader. There went about 90% of the reason for buying Sony. The other 10% was the perception that Sony is a "good brand." Having owned a Vaio (big, heavy, noisy and not very powerful) and a Cybershot (mediocre pictures, weak features, small screen, bad UI), she now realizes that, while Sony still makes an OK product, "OK" doesn't justify the price premium that Sony wants.
End result: Sony squeezed too hard and the customer got away.
Re:No brainer (Score:3, Insightful)
Good point on who the perceived source of the problem is, though I don't fully agree that it is right to blame Dell. Sure they should have done better testing, but Sony produced the faulty components and distributed them to many others than just Dell.
In a way though this reminds me of the old Firestone tire fiasco. According to an ME friend of mine who worked for a different tire company this was definitely Ford's fault, as it was Ford who created the specifications for the tires. My friend's company looked into it after the initial problems with Firestones and found that their own tires made to Ford's spec had the same problem. Ford of course did a great job of making it look like it wasn't their fault, and this other smaller tire company certainly wasn't going to step forward to set the record straight.
Just goes to show that the actual source of the problem isn't as important as who gets blamed.