Sony Case Anlaysis

Again, this is for my Marketing on the Internet class...

Taking a look at sony.com, the way they choose to structure the many elements of Sony is interesting. While Sony mostly takes advantage of a branded house strategy, they also take a few pages out of the house of brands strategy. For example, on Sony's home page, you can easily get to any of their other departments. There are links for consumer and business electronics, Playstation, music & movies, online games, service & support, product registration, and shopping. So far, all the makings of a branded house strategy. However, once you begin to investigate Sony's other departments, the branded house strategy starts to break down into a mix of branded house and house of brands.

Sony has never been one to disguise a product as something other then Sony (Playstation and Blu-Ray might be the closest examples, but even those have the Sony name plastered everywhere). That said, it's hard to say that Sony is a true house of brands in the P&G sense (Tide, Pringles, Charmin, etc.) but if you take a look at the URL's for each of Sony's product divisions, the name changes. Instead of the URL being sony.com/shop, or sony.com/movies (typical branded house strategy) you have sonystyle.com (shopping) and sonypictures.com (movies & TV), which is more in line with a house of brands strategy. In that respect, Sony Style is a different brand from Sony Pictures, or even Sony alone. However, Sony imparts all of its associated baggage (good and bad) onto its other brands by the inclusion of the corporate name.

Sony has a separate domain for each of their product divisions. This is good and bad. Because of the separate domains, Sony has a much higher chance of turning up in search results. One could search Sony, Sony Style, Sony Pictures, or any other combination, and some part of the Sony site will turn up. Instead of providing a single highway to the site (Apple) Sony provides consumers with a collection of major roads. The downside to this strategy are the costs associated with owning and maintaining separate domains for each brand. While the money many be a drop in the bucket for a large corporation like Sony, it still matters. There are also different marketing decisions to be made. Does Sony market the home page and let consumers find their way from there? Or do they market each division and domain name separately? If Sony chooses the separate route, again, money rears its ugly head.

I always wonder how effective a branded house strategy can truly be. On one hand, if you have a reputable brand name, as Sony typically does, it's an easy way to build consumer confidence and trust in different product offerings. On the other hand, if you don't have a reputable brand name, or something catastrophic happens, the entire company suffers, instead of a single brand. It's also harder to differentiate product offerings. In the mind of a typical consumer, a Bravia is just a Sony TV, a Blu-Ray is just a Sony DVD player (R.I.P. HD-DVD - you will be missed). It's not like P&G where Tide is a separate entity from Pringles, or any of their other brands. I tend to side with the house of brands strategy. I think it is much more effective to create separate identities for each brand, without the baggage of an obvious corporate name. It can also make damage control much easier. If P&G finds out that Tide is laced with toxic chemicals, it probably won't affect sales of Pringles. However, if Sony is involved in some high profile corporate scandal, then it probably affects sales for their entire product line. Like I said before, a case can be made for each strategy, I just happen to think house of brands is the most effective.

Nike vs. Puma - Marketing on the Internet Case Study

For my Marketing on the Internet class...







Mass customization has officially moved into the world of athletic shoes and sneakers. Two companies, Nike and Puma, each throw their hats into the mass customization ring with varying levels of success. Each company has a unique website that offer customers two very different experiences. One company tries to go the slick high tech route, while the other tries to wrap their products in a kitschy fictional world.

We’ll start by taking a look at Nike, and their efforts with the NIKEiD program. Out of the two companies, I think that Nike has the most success with their website and customization program. Nike, which I assume has a larger budget then Puma, decided to use the slick high tech route, and the extra money definitely shows in the final product. Nike’s website offers a high level of functionality and ease of use for the final consumer. Because of this, among other parts, Nike customers will want to spend large amounts of time on the website, customizing a bevy of Nike products to purchase and to show off to friends.

On a basic level, Nike offers everything that it probably should, and shows why it is one of the top athletic apparel companies in the world. First and foremost, Nike offers customers a plethora of products that they can either customize, or order pre-designed versions, like shoes in college team colors. The website itself is smooth, flashy, and minimizes downtime between screens. This, like the customization options, gives users a reason to stay on the site. If there were large amounts of downtime, for example, users would most likely navigate away from the page before getting the chance to immerse themselves in the site.


Nike’s customization process itself is very user intuitive, and simple to do. Users can pick from a variety of basic shoe styles to start out with, and then customize with different colors and custom logo placement. Once the shoe is finished, the user can either buy the shoe, or use the design as a custom desktop wallpaper, save it to a personal locker (sign-up for nike ID required), or send the design to a friend. In this way, Nike implements touches of buzz and viral elements. You create a cool shoe, send it to a friend, and hopefully, the friend makes their own shoe, and sends that on to someone else. The concept isn’t essential to the success of the idea, but it’s a nice touch that shows the level of thought and consideration employed by Nike. Also within the NIKEiD site is the option to customize products other then shoes, such as workout gear, shirts, and gym bags. This provides the consumer with not only a more diverse product lineup, but the opportunity to turn a 100$ shoe purchase into a 200$ shoe, bag and shirt purchase.



Taking a look at Puma, we see a site that has a high level of creativity, and clearly wants to provide consumers with a clever, engaging shopping experience, but because of several issues, ultimately falls short of that goal. The concept is pretty simple, take the experience of a Mongolian BBQ restaurant, (I’ve never been to one, but judging by the site, you get to choose all the ingredients that go into your meal) and apply it to shoe customization. This is the first problem I have with this idea. What exactly does a Mongolian BBQ have to do with shoes? Beyond the obvious customization link, I don’t think the idea works too well.

The second issue, is that Puma gives the consumer too many options, and not in the right areas. The great part about the Nike site is that a consumer was able to select from a slate of blank shoe designs. Puma gives you two designs, and that’s for men and women alike. Personally, if I’m going to shell out the money for a custom shoe, there better be no one else with even a similar design.

Once you get into the customization process, Puma gives you about 20 different places where you can add a custom color or design pattern, so the design process can take a substantial amount of time to complete. It doesn’t help that during the customization process, it is difficult to get an idea of what the shoe looks like, since each piece is laid flat on an animated lunch tray. The site itself is also very slow. This results in choppy graphics, and a tedious customer experience. I do not know why anyone would want to spend any significant amount of time on this website.

Where the site has the right idea, however, is within its express design option. Here, like Nike, users can easily see how the shoe design is taking shape, and the design decisions are easier to make and use a more intuitive interface.

Between the two sites, Nike is the hands down winner. Nike does the best job of making technology work for them and their consumer. They have a flashy site that encourages consumers to spend time there. They also make the customization process easy and fun. Just about everything one could possibly desire from a customization website, Nike has.

Final Semester

I'm almost through my first week of classes for my final college semester and the work is already starting to pile on. Going in, I expected this semester to be much easier then my last one, but that thought is slowly dwindling away. I hope I can do a better job of managing my stress level this time around. If only I could have taken one fewer course...

The Late Night Guru

Let's face it. Conan O'Brien is an amazing entertainer. For those of you who don't watch the show regularly (I'm one of them), Conan has been running his show without writers due to the ongoing writers strike. Somehow, without the writers at his side, Conan and crew are able to come up with fresh and original content for the show. I mean c'mon, on a recent show he made spinning a wedding ring on a table for 2 minutes entertaining. The man is a comic genius. If you haven't been watching the show lately, tune in. It's probably some of the best work he's ever done.

Music Snob

It's true. Sometimes I can be a music snob. While this is a bit extreme, it can be pretty close to the truth.

"Hey Tony!"

So I wen't out to dinner with my girlfriend and her mom in Asbury Park, NJ.  The restaurant is called "Jimmy's", and the place's speciality is Italian food.  We ate in the "back room" which, according to someone who works there, was at one point a meeting location for local mobsters.  The restaraunt itself used to be a front for the mob, until the owner died and his wife took over.  Of course, while you're eating there that fact shoudn't surprise you, the place looks like it's straight out of Goodfellas, or The Godfather.  Maybe even the Sopranos.  Going in, I had hopes of networking with a dining mobster.  After all, I have logged quite a few hours playing the Godfather video game, so I know a few of the ins and outs of the family business.  But alas, I was unsuccessful, and will have to put my mobster dreams on the shelf for a few more years.

Random purchase of my lifetime

I went to a benefit auction tonight for the local history center (good job Alyssa and Park Scholars!) and made the most random purchase of my life! Arnold Schwarzenegger's face prosthesis from the movie End of Days. While the movie pretty much sucked, it's cool to have this unique piece of film memorabilia!


Pictures!



I could pose as his double, right?