All not well at Aiwa
Sony came storming off the blocks in January with plans to revitalise subsidiary Aiwa through a new range of audio players. A couple of months down the road, things aren't looking so rosy.
First, the promised AZ-FS256 headphone-type mp3 player with built in FM radio, to have launched this month, was cancelled in February when it became clear that developing an FM tuner of the necessary size and quality would have put the launch back dramatically.
Today, Sony announced delays to the remaining four models in the Aiwa range. The two Giga Pavit hard-disk players, the business-card-sized HZ-WS2000 and the shock-resistant HZ-DS2000, will be launched on May 21 instead of in April. The problem lies in the newly-developed one-inch 2GB hard disk, which isn't meeting reliability standards. Worse, this won't just result in a delay; Sony is downgrading to 1.5GB capacity drives, though pricing for the players themselves will stay the same as the smaller drives are no cheaper to procure.
As if that weren't enough, the two players compatible with Aiwa's Pavit USB memory drives, which were scheduled for launch in March and April, will now not be out until June 1--again, because they're not meeting Sony's reliability standards.
Small print on the Aiwa business card shown top right probably reads: "Don't blame us; we're just doing what the guys upstairs tell us..."
[Via ITmedia (Japanese)]
Posted by aragoto at April 08, 2004 11:00 PM | TrackBackLet me introduce myself. I am Dr. Joseph Toman. I was commissioned once to write a report for Mr. Akio Morita, which I have not done for years, but have finally done it and sent it to Mr. Idei, Sony's CEO. It was nearly a year ago. I have no clue if they gave him the report, which had 10's of pages, but he has not responded at all. It all started when a famous japanese painter became a good friend of my family, and had good relationship with Mr. Morita.
About Aiwa: I warned Sony in my report of the new AIVA logo, of the problem with the brand's image; I warned them that they are killing the brand.
The problem is not AIWA. It is Sony. They never managed to give the brand a high enough image. Now they are killing the brand by getting rid of the name AIWA on front of the product and replacing it with something remotely resembling AIVA. When I saw the first AIVA product in a store in the US, it looked as a cheapest no brand item. Why? Because it had no name, just some meaningless logo. Now they are adding a small sticker on the front panel with the original AIWA and the new AIVA logos; I've seen it in Europe. This is not enough. The logo must be large and say AIWA. Calling a product AIVA and adding Sony Corporation on the back of the product is bad for Sony's image also. Plus Aiwa needs high end products to build up it's image.
Sony once had a Mariton brand in the US. They had not built the image and the brand died. The AIWA's case is similar.
The whole problem is that Sony is a Japanese company and there is not enough fine sensitivity and understanding of the optimal marketing in other countries. Their products are excellent, but they are losing their image in the US because of incorrect steps an many areas.
Great company. I've always admired them; just need to do some adjustments.
Posted by: Joseph Toman on April 9, 2004 10:59 AMmy email address is JosefToman@yahoo.com
Posted by: Joseph Toman on April 9, 2004 11:04 AM