Sony Australia boss Carl Rose has spoken out about the Sony brand, his marketing collaboration with other Sony subsidiaries and their future content network but he refuses to talk about their losses, falling TV market share and recent research which shows that retailers prefer recommending Samsung over Sony.
He claims that Sony is rolling out big changes. He also pumps up the fact that Sony is set to start marketing their new content network that will allow consumers to buy Sony content direct as opposed to visiting a retailer.
In an interview with marketing and advertising magazine ADNews Rose claims that Sony Australia is initiating a closer relationship with Sony subsidiaries in Australia including Sony Music, Sony Pictures, Sony Erricsson, and Sony Computer Entertainment who are responsible for sales of their Playstation branded products.
“We are already a lot closer in our sharing than most other Countries” said Rose. He then went on to say “if I was a competitor I wouldn’t want Sony to put it all together”.
He said that Sony’s European head of marketing Edward Donald, who has an influence on the Australian market says the use of regional developed advertising and marketing for a particular Sony product is “Out”.
Donald recently said that Sony is set to spend more money on production than media. “The Pan regional TV campaign I really think is gone” said Rose.
Instead Sony is set to use content from their own movies, games and music to promote their products.
In a direct swipe at competitors like Samsung, LG and Panasonic, vendors who have been tearing market share away from Sony across several categories in Australia, Rose said of the collaboration between Sony subsidiaries “If I was putting myself in competitors shoes the one thing I wouldn’t want Sony to do is put all that together because they’re still competing with Sony as a studio, or as a mobile phone Company or a computer brand”.
What Rose failed to mention was that Sony Ericsson has become a mobile phone basket case with falling sales and profits. Nor has he mentioned that Sony Computer Entertainment has failed to make a profit in year and that sales of the PS3 console have been on the decline in several markets around the world.
Nor did he address the issue of why, if the Sony brand is so strong that retailers and consumers are turning away from the brand as they move to brands like Samsung, LG, Apple, Nintendo and Panasonic.
In Australia Sony has seen declines in Bravia TV sales, Blu ray player’s digital cameras and camcorders this year while globally the Company is losing billions.
Last night JD Power released the results of a major mystery shopper survey that showed that retailers were less likely to recommend the Sony brand.
It is also tipped that Sony Corporate is set to announce additional losses of $1.6 Billion. This is on top of the billions Sony lost last year. Company Chairman Sir Howard Stringer has admitted that very few areas of his consumer electronics business are profitable.
As part of Sony’s savage cost cutting, which has resulted in additional cuts in Australia on top of the 32 announced earlier this year, Sony has been forced to move to OEM manufacturers for many of their products including their Bravia LCD TV’s.
This prompted Sony Australia to today launch a 3 year warranty program promotion, for the next three months.
In the interview with ADNews Rose admitted that the collaboration with Sony subsidiaries was primarily being done at a managing director level and that both Canada and Australia were leading the Sony world in working together.
One big downside of Sony’s collaboration and the introduction of the content network in Australia is that consumers will be forced to buy content from Sony if they want to fully utilise their Sony hardware purchase.
The new Sony PSP Go which is set to be launched tomorrow (Thursday) is a classic example. A piece of hardware the new PSP Go will force consumers who want games to buy them direct from Sony over the Internet in a move that could push up bandwidth costs.
In retaliation leading gaming retailer EB Games has refused to stock the Sony PSP Go product.
