Sony Marketing Mix: Consumer Perception Essay Example

Sony has categorized their range of home video systems and accessories as including options to record favorite TV programs. Their offerings include a Blue-ray disc player, a DVD player, and a DVD portable player. Additionally, Sony offers a range of home audio products to meet various customer needs, usage, and budget requirements. Their Hi-Fi products are a particular source of pride for the company, delivering rich music with preset equalizer settings.

Sony has categorized their products into several categories, including DVD Home Theatre Systems, Home Theatre Component Systems, Home Theatre System Accessories, and E. Digital Photography. Their range of imaging devices caters to different users and professions. They offer slim cameras that are easy to carry for casual users or girls and more advanced cameras with features like digital SLR for real photograph enthusiasts and professionals. They also provide photo printers and frames.

Sony offers several sub-categories in digital photography, which include the following: Digital SLR, Cyber-shot Digital Camera, Digital Photo Printer, and Digital Photo Frame. Additionally, Sony has produced various video cameras for both home and office use. These handy cam video cameras are user-friendly and can be used for creating family videos, documentary filming, and feature films. The subcategories of Sony's handy cam video cameras are as follows:

Sony offers a range of portable audio products, which are divided into sub-categories such as Walkman mp3 series, CD Walkman series, CD/Radio/Cassette player, Radio Voice recorder and Audio Accessories. In addition, Sony's gaming options cover all genres to cater to customer preferences. The brand has also created

powerful consoles that come with compelling video games. Popular Sony games include 4 Playstation, 3 Playstation 2 and PSP (Playstation Portable). Collaborating with Sony Ericsson, Sony has produced a diverse collection of mobile phones designed for various individuals, lifestyles, usage cases, budgets and professions.

Sony has created various mobile phone accessories for customers to improve their appearance, protect them from harm, or increase their functionality. These accessories fall under the categories of Phones and Phone Accessories. Additionally, Sony has developed a range of in-car entertainment products, including standard car radios and CD changers, as well as more exciting devices for viewing media like video and television. Products within this category include the Xplod CD receiver and in-car visual equipment.

Sony has a range of trustworthy storage and recording media options available to customers. These products cover various needs, such as transferring or storing information. The collection includes small data storage devices for transfer and media for securely storing substantial amounts of data. The product categories include Memory Stick, USB storage media, data storage media, video storage media, audio media, professional media and speaker/subwoofers for cassette receiver amplifiers.

Sony offers a diverse range of laptops with various features, designs, models and sizes to meet customers' needs. The brand's batteries and chargers are reliable and provide excellent performance to ensure users always have access to power. This essay will focus on examining Sony's selection of laptops.

Sony has introduced a product known as Sony VAIO with its own brand name.

The only controllable method for a company to generate awareness among various publics about its products and services and influence their attitudes favorably is through

promotional efforts. Sony India's Marketing Communication Mix includes a spending of Rs 200 core in this financial year specifically on advertising and promotion (Promotional Budget) for its entire range of consumer electronics, with Rs 60 core allotted solely for digital imaging products.

Sony promotes its products through various means, including events like Miss India 2008 and advertising games such as Playstation 3, Playstation 2, and PSP through sports like football in the English Premiere League. The company also advertises its wide range of products in newspapers like Times of India and uses posters to spread awareness among the public.

Co-operative advertising is a term used to describe the sharing of media costs between a company and its dealers. Sales promotion, on the other hand, involves utilizing various incentive techniques to create sales-related programs for customers, trade, or sales levels. These programs are designed to generate a specific and measurable action or response for a product or service. Examples of sales promotions include free samples, discounts, rebates, coupons, contents and sweepstakes, premiums, scratch cards, exchange offers, and early bird prizes.

Sony has utilized various sales promotional techniques to advertise its products. An instance of this was observed during the launch of Sony BRAVIA TV sets, wherein Sony offered bird prizes to customers who purchased the BRAVIA full HD LCD TVs during July 2008. Customers who registered their purchases within two weeks qualified for a Bonus Playstation 3, subject to being one of the first 35,000 claims received and validated by Sony. Furthermore, to promote its Sony Ericsson Pl i phones, Sony included scratch cards that provide customers with the opportunity to download 10 free software

applications for their mobile phone.

As part of a promotion, Sony Ericsson is offering a free Bluetooth headset with a one-year manufacturer's warranty for the mid-range Cyber-shot phone, the Sony Ericsson K550i. In addition to this offer, Sony Corporation engages in various communication activities such as public relations and publicity to establish positive relationships with employees, shareholders, suppliers, media, educators, potential investors, financial institutions, government agencies and officials and society at large. Contact information is available on the company's website for those seeking further information from Sony Corporation.

To ensure customer satisfaction, Sony can establish a two-way relationship with them. However, negative events may lead to unfavorable reactions from the public and unpleasant situations for the organization. Thus, Sony has implemented policies and procedures to manage any related public relation issues in order to mitigate their harmful impact. As an example of this approach, Sony launched an advertisement featuring a man wearing a crown of thorns adorned with button symbols (A, O, X, D) while smiling at the camera.

Sony's ad campaign caused controversy with both Catholics and the Vatican due to its reference to the popular film, The Passion of the Christ. The advertisement at the bottom of the page proclaimed "Ten Years of Passion" in an attempt to gain attention. The backlash was swift, with threats of ex-communication being directed towards Sony. As a result, they quickly ended their campaign. Another controversial ad by Sony featured a white model dressed in all white clutching onto a black model's face, dressed in black, which was released in July 2006 in the Netherlands.

One of Sony's ads contained the phrase "White is coming," which has

been criticized as racist. However, a spokesperson from Sony defends the ad, stating that it was simply meant to highlight the contrast between their black PSP model and the new ceramic white PSP. Other images from the ad campaign depict the black PSP model dominating over the white PSP model. It is important for Sony's public relations department to address these concerns in order to maintain positive relations with the public.