Search results

Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

On April 6, 2005, Sony Corporation announced the signing of a global partnership program contract with the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the organizer of the FIFA World Cup. The contract, which represented the first global marketing and communications platform for the Sony Group, would run from 2007 to 2014 with a contract value (excluding services and product leases) of 33.0 billion yen (approximately $305 million). This was a very significant marketing investment for Sony, since the cost of event sponsorship with advertising was typically two or three times the cost of the sponsorship rights; hence, Sony was potentially investing a billion dollars or more on FIFA-related marketing campaigns over the next several years. Many Sony senior executives were questioning the return on investment (ROI) of the FIFA sponsorship opportunity.

To define key metrics and articulate a methodology for campaign measurement pre- and post-campaign to quantify ROI. To design a new Sony marketing campaign to activate the FIFA sponsorship opportunity, define metrics for measurement, and learn to use a balanced scorecard approach. Since the FIFA sponsorship is a brand campaign, nonfinancial metrics are primarily used. The key to success is to have a clearly defined sponsorship marketing strategy and business objectives.

The paper aims to review Sony Ericsson's brand management decision to leverage a brand from the Sony portfolio in their cellular phones.

The paper draws on data from Sony Ericsson and brand portfolio theories.

The results reveal that the function of the Walkman brand has changed from a sub‐brand strategy that initially protected the Sony brand against potential failure of the extension via a graveyard brand with outdated product categories into a brand driver defining the category of Sony Ericsson's premium MP3 player cellular phones.

The paper provides strategic brand management insights and thinking underlying the Sony Ericsson brand portfolio strategy and how new product categories can subvert incumbent brands.

This paper is of particular value to anybody seeking to understand brand‐based business development, including business managers, brand managers and academic researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively understand the reactions of online publics to a victim cluster crisis as the crisis unfolds and offer a new way of tracking online hot-issue publics using comments on online news articles.

This research uses a mixed-methods approach, employing both descriptive quantitative techniques and qualitative thematic analysis.

Qualitative analyses of online news comments on BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post revealed that publics’ reaction to the cyber-attack on Sony, the following threats of attack, and Sony’s response to it largely ran counter to the situational crisis communication theory’s (SCCT) assumptions about victim cluster crises. Analyses also revealed a pattern in the volume of comments on the two online news outlets, supporting the conceptualization of hot-issue publics growing and decreasing as news coverage of an issue rises and falls.

The analysis was limited to one incident and two online media.

This paper provides empirical support for the use of online news comments to track hot-issue publics and what is important to them. In addition, tracking the tone and content of the comments allows for an examination of the fit of SCCT assumptions and provides a way for practitioners to understand public opinion and adapt communication plans based on insights gleaned from such data.

This study is one of few to provide empirical support for the conceptualization of hot-issue publics, and to do so using online news comments. In addition, it is one of very few to study the SCCT in real-world settings, examining real publics’ reactions to real issues.

In late 2019, Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, the president and director of research at Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL), had decided he would be stepping down from his position soon. Sony CSL, a small blue-sky fundamental research facility funded by Sony, had always operated on the strength of the trust between Sony's CEO and the lab's director. Sony had been hands-off in its management, leaving Kitano to hire, fire, fund, and evaluate the lab's researchers and project portfolio at his own discretion. Now that he was stepping down, however, he worried that Sony CSL could not withstand his departure. Kitano wanted to make a transparent plan for the organization's future before he handed off Sony CSL to his successor. That plan involved three key decisions. First, what should be the optimal structure and governance of Sony CSL? Should it maintain its independence and autonomy, or should it align more closely with Sony's business priorities? Second, how could Sony CSL scale its impact on Sony and society at large, given its small size? Finally, should Sony CSL establish some standard methods of measuring project success and strength of the portfolio? In making these decisions, Kitano wanted to ensure that he preserved the unique culture that had allowed Sony CSL to pursue path-breaking research and innovation.

States that few studies have attempted to measure the joint effect of brand and country images, or the dimensions of these images, on consumer evaluation of global products. Suggests a methodology for defining product value by consumers’ perception of brand and country image dimensions when sourced internationally. Brand‐country image profiles were factor analysed to provide dimensions of each brand‐country combination. Shows that consumer perception of product value changes, evidenced by brand‐country dimensions, as production is sourced internationally, and suggests a modified marketing strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of country of origin (COO) information on brand perception and brand image structure.

Through an analytical review, research hypotheses were built. An empirical investigation was carried out among Japanese consumers. Two brands of electronics with different levels of reputation were investigated.

Results showed that COO had an effect on brand perception. This effect differs across brands and across countries of production. Brand‐origin appears to be of significant impact on consumer perception. Brand images are found to be multidimensional. Their structures differ across brands and across COO.

COO has multiple effects on brand image perception. Brand image is multidimensional. This research dealt with one type of product among culturally similar respondents which may limit the finding.

Marketing actions should be customized across brands with different levels of reputation. Brand image should be assessed as a multidimensional concept incorporating multiple facets. Consumers are influenced by the brand‐origin. Marketers should be aware of this association.

This research tests the multidimensional aspect of brand image structure and effect of COO information on brand image structure. Results show that COO information affects both the degree of fragmentation of brand image as well as its composition.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The passing from office of charismatic founder Akio Moriata still casts a shadow over the Sony Empire. The once sure‐footed innovator is not in crisis, but corporate decline and fall can be a slow lingering death. Certainties have gone. An organization that once shrugged off a gallant defeat in video format wars (a superior Sony Betamax system came second to the more prevalent VHS) is beginning to face up to an uncertain future, one in which it cannot be insulated from the pace of competition. The issues currently being faced go to the very soul of the organization. So when its back is increasingly against the wall, what is its self‐image, what are its basic instincts about the fight to be fought, and is the stomach there to take the painful decisions needed to thrive in the next era?

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Increasingly, manufacturers and service providers face the challenge of improving the environmental performance of their products. A number of studies have shown the importance of environmental goals and measures for successful environmental design efforts in firms. This paper provides a framework of environmental goals or benchmarks and examines Sony Corporation as a case study of improving the environmental performance of products. Specific examples of Sony's targets for improvement are provided along with examples of initiatives for their achievement. In particular, Sony's product assessment check sheet is introduced as a simple yet effective tool for identifying areas for environmental improvement, as well as for measuring and promoting improvement efforts in alignment with the organization's longer‐term environmental goals.

This chapter analyzes and considers from the perspective of business models and holistic leadership strategic knowledge creation for leading internal ventures in large corporations to success. The case study takes a close-up look at the games business, focusing chiefly on Sony’s PlayStation.

One lesson learned from the case study was that the elements of productive friction and creative abrasion among practitioners at the knowledge boundaries between project teams, existing organizations, and external partners encouraged creative strategic collaboration among practitioners. Another lesson was that practitioners at all management levels of top management, project leaders, and project staff established distributed business community networks within and outside the company through strategic collaboration based on holistic leadership.

Furthermore, the existence of “community networks (networked knowledge boundaries)” inside and outside the company enabled the integration of different kinds of knowledge and achieved technological innovation (incremental innovation, architectural innovation) in the development of PlayStation as a new product.