Sony Australia, who has lost up to 50% share of the Australian flat panel TV market during the past 9 months, is set to launch a major soccer linked marketing campaign in an effort to reverse their fortunes.
The campaign features soccer “bad boy” Tim Cahill who was hired last year by Sony in the run up to the 2010 World Cup. Australia qualified for the event that attracts a TV audience of millions. The campaign will be mix of TV and print.
Sony, who have also entered into co-soccer sponsorship deals with Bing Lee, a preferred Sony retailer, is also tipped to be using the 2010 World Cup to re launch the Sony brand globally after massive losses and admissions from senior management, that almost all of their product categories including Bravia TV’s, Cybershot camera’s and Vaio notebooks are losing money globally.
Last month, Bing Lee and Sony signed off on a deal to jointly sponsor Sydney FC. They also signed a deal with the Brisbane Roar in partnership with Wow Sight and Sound.
Tony Barbour, deputy general manager of Sony’s struggling consumer electronics division, said “Our involvement with Soccer allows us to build a link between our brand and a global sport”.
Barbour said that the use of Tim Cahill in marketing campaigns would increase running into the 2010 World Cup.
A senior Samsung executive said recently “We know what Sony is up to with Soccer. We have our own plans around the 2010 World Cup. Sony will not have it all their own way”.
According to the latest GFK research Sony has sunk to less than 15% market share in the flat panel TV market while Samsung have lifted their share to over 40%.
