Slashdot Mirror
Sony Shrugs Off Bad Press - Still A Strong Brand
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.'"
Battery fires and rootkits are Slashdot tech news, but not everyday Mom & Pop frontpage news. It's then quite obvious why Sony still has a great reputation with the majority.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
It's the 10% who see through the BS that are worth listening to.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
is dead to me
There is no such thing as bad press. If your brand is in the news and keep people talking about your brand, it's more likely to be remembered.
Sad but true..
In action in this story.
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
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
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.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
When you go into a mall and see a Sony shop that scream prestige and high class where no other electronic manufacturer even HAS a shop.
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...
I've said for years and years now, Sony is pretty good at "walking the thin line" of how much the average consumer will tolerate and still keep buying their products.
... but back then, you didn't really see SD media around. You had mostly CompactFlash, which was noticeably bigger/bulkier, and those "Smartmedia" cards which always seemed flimsy, like they'd accidently snap in half in your pocket.
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.)
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.
[
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.
No, not only the US consumers. It's a global phenomenon. People will always fall for shiny and price, even if the company behind it would make the shell of the item out of little kittens and have it assembled by 8 year olds who get whippings instead of lunch breaks.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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:) ,we thought, we bought. It's virtual ownership in the real world. It's bullshit, but people don't care enough to stop consuming it. They are ambivalent and addicted. When will people stop being sheep and put an end to this bullshit?
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.
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.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I am sorry but the American consumer is among the dumbest and most astonishingly ignorant in the entire world. I don't think its about forgiveness Its about ignorance. Plain and simple. When we the people realize that Sony is at the forefront of purchasing away YOUR RIGHTS from congress. When we the people realize that Sony is among the most arrogant and draconian companies in the world and regards all their customers as criminals. When we the people realize that Sony will stop at nothing to dominate and dictate how we use hardware and media. When we are sure about these things and many others we will stop purchasing their crap. The thing here is that just about every piece of electronic equipment I currently own is Sony. I am personally responsible for sales of well over a million dollars worth of Sony products by proxy. But given their practices I will never again purchase another Sony product as long as I breathe oxygen on this planet nor will I EVER recommend their products to any of our clients or ANYONE for that matter.
Landor polled 2,000 consumers. Knowing what you know about consumers and their knowledge of tech, how many of them do you think were even aware of rootkit issues and bad batteries (unless they were personally affected)?
The article is right, the Playstation cures much bad press.
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.