Sony To Step Up Walkman Ad Campaign
Sony To Step Up Walkman Ad Campaign
by , 11:00 AM EDT, July 9th, 2004
It appears that the war is on for the minds and pocketbooks of the American music lover. According to a Reuters report, Sony is preparing to launch an advertising attack that highlights its new Walkman digital music player.
Sony's new line of portable, personal digital music players are being seen as the first true competition against Apple's iPod, and there have been some words between the two companies about how Sony is portraying the capabilities of its new players against those of the iPod.
According to the article, Sony intends to double its advertising budget, and the ad campaign will highlight other Sony products as well. From the article:
Sony Electronics, the North American sales arm of Japan's Sony Corp. has focused its advertising on four key product lines, including its spruced up Walkman digital music player which aims to take a bite out of Apple Computer's market-leading iPod.
"It is the largest single campaign that Sony's ever put together in the United States," Mark Viken, senior vice president of corporate marketing, told Reuters.
"We're doubling spending from last year in total, and we are integrating our activities so they look and feel as if they are coming from one Sony," he said, without providing dollar figures.
There's more information in the full article at Reuters News.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Is that Sony throwing don't the gauntlet?It certainly seems so. It is clear that Sony wants Apple's leadership in the world of portable music players, a position it once firmly held with its line of Walkman cassette and CD players. With the right advertising campaign, Sony might pull it off, especially if Apple does nothing to counter it.
Apple's advertising focus for the last year or so has been exclusively on the iPod, and that advertising has heretofore been very successful. There may well be a renewed iPod campaign featuring the iPod mini, now that the device has gone global, but will it be enough to counter a Sony ad campaign focused on the US? It's hard to say, but you can be sure that Sony is taking this seriously, and we can only hope that Apple is doing the same.
Observer Comments
"Is that Sony throwing don't the gauntlet?"
I think you meant down...
With Sony's model, the digital walkman is doomed even before it begins...
ATRAC? And all songs need to be converted (and degraded) into ATRAC so it can play it? Each conversion will degrade the songs.
Also, People complain that the iPod only works with iTMS, so why is it ok for SONY to make it compatible with one music store??
Fri Jul 09, 2004 12:02 pm Subject: Sony's music store is incompatable with everyone else.
It's alright for Sony to use only it's own Music store because the Vaio plays "nice" by being a PC. The media gives them a free pass because of that.
QuoteGuest wrote:
"Is that Sony throwing don't the gauntlet?"
I think you meant down...
With Sony's model, the digital walkman is doomed even before it begins...
ATRAC? And all songs need to be converted (and degraded) into ATRAC so it can play it? Each conversion will degrade the songs.
Also, People complain that the iPod only works with iTMS, so why is it ok for SONY to make it compatible with one music store??
It's alright for Sony to use only it's own Music store because the Vaio plays "nice" by being a PC. The media gives them a free pass because of that.
===
What does this mean? It's a PC? What do you mean by that? And iTunes/iPod work perfectly well with PCs.
Are you saying the media likes Sony better than Apple? I don't really think that's true, and anyway, I still don't know what "plays nice" means.
I think he means cause they make PCs, all of the anti-mac people won't be on its case. Whereas they get all over the iPod simply because its made by Apple.
===
Ok. Well, in my experience "anti mac" people tend to only exist in chat rooms on the 'net. I know plenty of people in real life who wouldn't buy a mac, but they don't have anything bad to say about them.
I think the iPod is a good indicator of that. They've sold a LOT of them to people who've never owned a Mac, and a lot of Windows users have gone to iTunes as well.
Anyway, thanks for clearing up what he meant.
Fri Jul 09, 2004 10:07 pm Subject: Won't Care?
Quoteflub wrote:
I don't think many people will care about the music file formats. This seems to be something that only more informed buyers will even recognize.
I can't agree with you: Many, if not most folks may not care a lot about unpopular formats, like AAC, ATRAC, Vobis, and others, but MP3, and possibly WMA, are high on people's minds. If a music player does not handle MP3, at least, people won't bother with in. Never mind that it's Sony that's pushing (remember the Betamax and Memory Stick), people will usually stick with what they know, and they know MP3.
Now Sony COULD lie and say that their player supports MP3 music, which would be akin to saying that Macs supports Windows. If they did so they would fool a few folks, but the lie would be revealed and people will be pissed. So, unless Sony include direct MP3 playing on their player, and charge a lot less for it, Apple has little to fear, for now at least.
Vern Seward
Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:29 am Subject: Upgrades are possible...
If Sony somehow manages to acquire one of the free clues currently bombarding them and add MP3 support to the Walkman, things could change in a big hurry. I'd give it 50/50 odds of happening -- they want marketshare, and MP3 support is the fast track.
Going against clue-acquisition is Sony's long track record of clinging to proprietary technologies (I'm sometimes surprised they've shipped Doze computers) and their huge captive Japanese market, where they can reasonably expect strong Walkman sales regardless of what the Rest of the World is doing.
Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:27 pm Subject:
Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:27 pm Subject: Sony's player is too expensive and not cool enough
$400 bucks!? most people don't spend that kinda dough on a "walkman" without knowing a little about it first. No mp3 support!!!!!!! It doesn't take long to see that Sony's 8track is a total piece of $#!%. It simply will not sell well. Ipods work great and more importantly they speak to people and improve there image, thats why they sell. I would rather have an ipod mini with 850 songs then Sony's player with 13k in 8tracks, even if it could play mp3's...its just not cool enough.
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