Like many people, I like to be No. 1. I think it stems from those earliest of Shrub Oak, N.Y. Little League days at age eight when I got a kick out of leading the expansion Cubs with six base hits. (Doesn’t sound very impressive looking back on it, but I still remember.)
In any event, while we did not come in on top, there are a couple of recent surveys where Sony ranked No. 2 that I feel pretty good about as well.
The first is the annual Harris Interactive poll released this week ranking American’s choice for the “best brands.” For the first time in eight years, Sony came in second place behind Coca-Cola. For the previous seven consecutive years, the company was ranked as the best. And while I’d have liked to have held onto that No. 1 position for yet another year, I am still constantly impressed and very proud to work for a company that has a brand so well regarded by the American public. Behind us in this poll of 2,372 people chosen to represent the demographics of the nation were such companies as Microsoft, Apple and Dell, along with Toyota, Ford, Kraft, Pepsi and Honda.
The other study I found interesting was one called the PRWeek/MS&L Marketing Management Survey . It polled a group of 279 marketing professionals across the country and asked them of 20 companies listed which they like to work for because it provides a stimulating environment for marketers. Again, Sony came in at No. 2, only behind Disney. In this case, we were pitted against the likes of Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Time Warner, McDonald’s, AT&T, and Verizon, among other leading marketers. It’s great to be associated with a company that the professionals in the field see as being a very stimulating, with which I can attest. By the way, our U.S. career site is at www.sonyjobs.com.
Given our Japanese roots, Sony’s leadership in both of these surveys might be surprising to some in the U.S. But actually one of our founders, the late Akio Morita, had a wonderful combination of insight, imagination, creativity and entrepreneurship, in addition to a passion for making Sony No. 1 in the American marketplace. In fact, he moved himself and his family to New York where they lived for many years to make sure it happened. Some of you who remember the Sony No Baloney line might also recall Akio Morita in one of those great American Express commercials where he said, “Do you know me?” One thing Morita-san encouraged was a concept he called “global localization,” which is kind of like the approach of “When in Rome…” Since Sony’s inception in the U.S. in 1960, the effort has always been there to maintain a global perspective, while running the U.S. operation as a local company with local management in touch with the desires of American consumers.
My hope is that this Sony blog will take the Morita vision into cyberspace with the same exhilarating Sony spirit that he inspired, while contributing in some small way to keeping us in tone with your opinions and on top (hopefully No. 1 next time) in the polls.
Speaking of Akio Morita, it was he who spearheaded Sony’s entry into the electronic camera market with the floppy disk-based Mavica camera introduction back in 1981. Today, Sony is a global leader in the digital still camera and digital imaging market overall, which is a topic I plan to address in a future post, in addition to offering up a guest blogger from our digital imaging team. But in the meantime, I’ve noticed that several of you commented on or raised questions about our commitment to the digital SLR segment of the business and the future of our Alpha camera line.
At the last Photo Marketing Association industry conference, we offered a glimpse of what’s cooking in the Sony D-SLR kitchen. Here are a few of those highlights:
· We have developed two camera prototypes targeting amateur enthusiasts and professional users.
· Both prototypes feature:
o High overall picture quality due to the development of a new image sensor;
o A Bionz image processing engine; and
o Sony’s Super Steady Shot image stabilization inside the cameras.
· Eight interchangeable lenses were also unveiled which feature:
o Large aperture standard zoom
o Telephoto zoom
o Large aperture wide angle zoom
o Super telephoto zoom
o Super telephoto fixed
o Telephoto fixed
o Wide angle fixed
o Large aperture wide angle fixed
Be on the lookout for more specific Alpha product announcements later in the year. You can also check out our press web site for the latest news at www.sony.com/news.
Last but not least for this post, I would like to thank you for visiting the site and offering your comments, which we are reading and taking to heart. Looks like we are off to a good start together. Talk to you again soon.