The Sony Camera Brand And Customer Satisfaction - Coursework Example

An Investigation Into The Sony Camera Brand And Satisfaction Introduction Sony Corporation is a multinational company with a diverse business scope that is based on vision media, communication products, and video game. The company was established in May 1946, launching its first transistor radios in 1955 then followed by its trademark Sony pocket sized radio. Since then the company has increasingly expanded its products to match the competition from the other companies. This report is specifically aimed at Sony camera brand and the customers’ satisfaction to the products the company produces. Sony camera is one of the most popular brands in the world owing to the different specifications that the camera has incorporated. With its advanced technology it is used by many consumers since it fits their needs. Moreover, the report gives a clear view of how the Sony products make an impact in the market, the strategy that can make Sony more lucrative, the brand loyalty of the camera and the importance of customer satisfaction. 1.1 Aim and objectives: The main aim of the report is to understand the Sony camera as a brand and the consumer fulfilment with its products. Understanding of the product gives better decision making for both the company and the users of its products. Therefore, the report’s aim is to deduce the value of both the camera’s impact as a brand and the approval by its users Objectives There are several objectives in this report that span from defining Sony camera brand, making a strategy for Sony camera, research the brand loyalty, analysis and evaluation of Sony camera brand equity and importance of customer satisfaction. 1.2 Situation Advantages Leading audio-visual technology To amaze its customers, Sony merges the excellent knowledge with its innovative technology. Sony is known for producing great audio-visual technology by its virtue of leading edge technology. Sony has always maintained its vision through offering modern technology and digital concepts while working together with the consumers. By doing so, the company stands to sell excellence to its users. Moreover, their consistency and dedication toward service moves the company closer to the customers. The company boasts the only camera without a mirror-less system. The superior nature of the company in audio- visual technology gives the company a better edge in the market. The production of this type of mirror-less camera opens a new dawn for camera technology having being a dream in the preceding years. Disadvantages Deficit For many years now, Sony has not registered a profit. In 2012, the company expected a loss of 6.4 billion making a big margin for the company. 1.3 The rationales Sony camera as a brand Despite the fact that Sony has built its name in the entire electronics industry, their camera house is a home to a range of cameras. Moreover, the company is recognised for its reliability and quality that comes with the brand name. The company has a range of cameras from the video cameras to high end SLR’s and DSLR’s. Their cameras come with quality audio reproduction making them better video cameras as compared to others. While other companies are content with slapping incremental developments, Sony has a differed approach to new technology. The ‘try it once’ mentality saw to the company’s discovery of the next generation mirror-less camera. This makes the rest of the industry to play catch up with the Sony technological platform. The level of accomplishment the company brings to the camera scene deserves emulation from the competitors, if they want to survive the subsequent decades. The company focuses its direction on the development of better technology since it requires better competitive edge for the main competition in the industry. Canon and Nikon pose the greatest competition in the camera scene. Promotional strategies Sony took a different approach to selling its products in the market that is generally based on search. For any user to upgrade to a DSLR the first thing they do is to begin with an online hunt. Instead of an upgrade, they get a complicated camera they can never use. Instead of following the orthodox marketing mix, Sony decided to increase awareness of its camera powerhouse by showing the consumer it was the better option as compared to the other brands. By seeding doubt to the consumer and raising the bar for its products as an option, the targeted audience became those customers who wanted to upgrade their photography. Viral films, tactical search, and tactical display media was used to raise doubts and better aided explanations of the Sony products was a promotion strategy that proved to work for Sony. YouTube was an influence in the making of the company campaign for better promotion Price Sony cameras have a competitive pricing giving the other brands run for their money. The company has a range of pricing that starts as low as $200 to as high as $20000. The range gives the customer a bigger range of exploration for the best choice. It set different prices according to the features the products exhibit. Pricing concessions were a big influence on the marketing strategies. 2.0 Literature review Brand definition Sony is a brand that stands for better and innovative essence of the industry. It describes what it presents to its clients, the meaning, and difference in the provision of the required by the clients. Moreover, it promises the consumers unique benefits of using the products it brings to the table. It differentiates the aspect of the products making them stand out from the vast customer preferences. As the camera market keeps on changing, Sony focuses on its dynamic orientation for both the amateur and professional photographers. This gives the users a better experience when using the camera. The brand focuses on satisfying its customers with the products as they focus on their needs. Brand strategy Sony uses a multiplicity of research options to get the desired outcome in its strategy for the company as a brand. Meta-design audited product packaging, online presence, and offline advertising for Sony products are some of the strategies the company employs when strategising. The meta-designs are insights that the company gain from the forums, stakeholder interviews, online analysis of social network feedbacks and customers. It gives the company a better angle to evolve accordingly. Through visualizing challenges facing the company, Sony reveals the requirements that the consumers need. With its vast production of different products, the company keeps its core brand promise for the customer. As it keep growing as a ‘house of brands’, the company aims at keeping the traditional attribute of the Sony brand in particular the innovation and high quality, which is the core preference of the client base. Since this was slowly fading amid the myriad of sub-brands, Sony targets the main tradition to stand out in the huge industry with different logotypes. The brand strategy of the company has triggered a new approach to Sony designs guidelines, which in the end gives the company an edge in the market. While focusing on sophisticated designs, the company comes up with simple, elegant, and powerful experience reliable for the clients’ expectations of the brand. For instance, the brand portfolio goals like creating synergy, clarity, and leverage used the corporate brand as a master to maximise its assortment in the industry. An umbrella strategy is another strategy employed by the company through placing of its product name along with the corporate name. This strategy gives the product its own positioning and identity while pulling the corporate name to greater heights. Their main aim is to sustain the consumer confidence index in the company’s products as it launches other products in the market. 2.2 Brand loyalty The brand theory of loyalty in this report is portrayed in three dimensions. The three dimensions are emotive tendency toward Sony, evaluative tendency toward the brand and the behavioural tendency towards the brand. Emotive tendency When analysing the emotive tendency of a brand, attachment to the brand is a crucial to scrutinise. Attachment to the product is one of the crucial aspect why the customer selects the products the company produces as a first choice. The deep commitment the customer has to the brand is the main feature the analysis focuses. Sony has made sure the touch points of the products give a multi-sensory perception to the clients through sights. The emotive tendency of the customers is based on the functional way the pick the multi-sensory stimuli of the brand as presented in the stores. The first aspect of the products that evoke the emotional tendency is the cognition via interaction with the products from various sources the products is reviewed or advertised. When the customer accesses information, the knowledge brings them closer to the products. Sony has made this evident by the numerous brand presence campaigns making it hard not to connect emotionally with the product the company offers. However, this aspect is connected directly with the other two dimensions, as consumers must have a behavioural tendency towards buying the products Sony offers hence the emotional attachment. Clients using Sony find it easy to find the information of the products they need hence making it easier to make the decision to buy the product. Sony uses the emotive tendency by giving its customer a cheaper way to gain the product information by freely advertising the brand knowledge to the clients. Therefore, Sony reduces the clients risk in making decision making them incline towards the brand through promise of satisfaction of the products they buy. More so, experiences build customer confidence and credibility of the products. Since Sony is an established brand, its acceptance in the market is easy as compared to other brands. Behavioural tendency Choice in terms of behaviour is a treated as a rate at which a particular product is performing in the market normally in a competitive aspect concerning the competition. Sony loyalty index is based on the time the company has been in the market. Behavioural explanation of Sony as a choice is based on the mental deliberation and what the people in a certain location support as efficient. Since Sony has been in the market, the tendency to buy Sony products is higher due to brand recognition and presence. By keeping the brand, visible Sony has enforced the behavioural patterns of its consumer increasing its probability of becoming the brand of choice. The substitutability of brands is a factor to consider when analysing the brand behaviour in the market. Sony has made sure the brand is visible in enough for any substitution since it is the most advertised product when it comes to cameras. Evaluative tendency This dimension is founded on the evaluation aspect of how customers evaluate their buys. The common aspect of this brand id determined by the details the brand has displayed on the products it sells. Clients find it easy to order since they get the information easily on the internet and other media the products are advertised. With the competitive pricing the company has set, there is more consumers tend to go for performance and more specifically a product that has more efficiency for at a good price mark. Clients evaluate their buys before making the decision to make the purchase. Sony keeps its products detailed with specifications making it easy for customers to weigh their needs before they buy. This dimension has increased the loyalty of its customer. Thinking of how people research for product specification, the detailed products makes the best sales. Sony has made it easier for the clients to make evaluations without wasting a lot of time on the products. 2.3 Brand equity Generally, brand equity is the marketing effect uniquely attributed to a brand. In an example, certain brands cannot make the profit if they did not have the name they do have presently. Sony has made sure its differentiation is merged with the customer needs. By doing so, the equity of the brand is increased substantially as the customer feels the need to connect with a brand that minds their requirements. Moreover, the company continues to amaze the users with better innovative products, which are relevant and recurring. The advertisements the corporation make are cross-culturally relevant and boost their sales. Marketing of Sony products is unmatched in the industry. Since the company has many products, it becomes easy to launch new products for the clients where the communication is balanced across the other products. 2.4 Importance of customer satisfaction Customer satisfaction is very intricate when it comes to business. As an indicator, it is ranked first. It gives the odds of repurchase when a survey is conducted. If a scale of 1-10 is used, the customer is labelled satisfied if they rate the product at seven making it a possibility they will use the same product or an upgrade in light of a new one in the market. Customer satisfaction also shows the competitive edge of the product when the market place is competitive. It gives a differentiation index when the company incorporates the element in the plans for the company. Customer satisfaction also reduces the churn when their preference in service is tracked. When the company tracks the satisfaction of customers, it becomes easy to increase quality of the services. Moreover, it increases the brand loyalty and customer lifetime value. Customer satisfaction reduces substantially negative publicity. A customer dissatisfied by the company’s products will spread the word quickly making it a bad influence to the revenue and repeat purchases. The most significant effect of customer satisfaction is the fact that it saves the company a great expense in looking for new customers. With good customer satisfaction, retention of the customers cost cheaper making it even cheaper to gain more customer base. 3.0 Methodology Ontology and epistemology were the specific method used in the research. Through ontology the discovery of the customers, thought of Sony was established. Primary research This primary research was based on data collected via questionnaire as a tool from 100 participants. Valid responses were 80 whereas the questionnaire had questions with single and multiple choices. The aim of the research was to research whether product satisfaction of the customer is relevant and understand if the use of customer satisfaction is relevant in the company’s strategy to grow. Ethics was a priority in the research process as the questionnaires were kept anonymous and all files were kept confidential. The participants on the other hand were given the choice to conduct the survey or not. Limitations of the research included change of moods and different expectations. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the findings of the research. The survey entailed a total of 100 participants 54 of the female gender and 26 male participants. The ages were assorted as they varied from 18yrs to above 35. Brands in check were Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, and others Findings The age of 18 to 25 was the majority in the participants group followed by the age of 26 to 30 the 31 to 35 then over 35 was the least in the group. Seven questions were posed in the questionnaire with multiple choices. Questions were based on the brand they currently use, what affects the camera preference, pricing, reputation, design style, picture quality, and enhancements of the camera preferred as compared to cameras of the same class. When it came to the question on brands the majority of the group owned a Sony camera, followed by Canon, then Nikon, Olympus, then others followed. Features of the product showed that many preferred a better-featured camera and if changed they would be inclined to the camera that has the features they treasure most. Fashion also showed an impressive majority inclined to fashion and thus the cameras need to be fashioned in a stylish, elegant, and simple design. Sony cameras were found to have a high price in view of the research results since majority did not totally agree with the pricing. Majority were inclined to Sony’s good reputation making the company a preferred choice when it came to reputation. Sony camera designs exhibited a stylish design. Majority thought the company produces very stylish cameras. However, a substantial number of the participant declared the company did not meet their expectations. Half the group accurately declared the quality of the cameras pictures was quality. This gives the camera a good profile since many find the picture quality appealing to their eyes. Consequently, the picture quality is still an issue to others hence needs rectifying for better customer satisfaction. Most of the participants were inclined to the improvement in diversity of Sony’s cameras. However, functionality also showed that people are interested in better functions, hence the need to change the functions of the devices the company produces. Below is the graphical representation of the findings on seven questions answered by participants. Brand currently in use It was structured that the participant would give the brand they are currently using. What will affect your preferences on a digital camera? Pricing of the Sony cameras (2=Totally Agree，2=Totally Disagree) A: 2 14 B: 1 19 C: 0 28 D: -1 10 E: -2 9 Sony’s reputation (2=Totally Agree，-2=Totally Disagree) A: 2 28 B: 1 14 C: 0 27 D: -1 8 E: -2 3 Picture quality (2=Totally Agree，-2=Totally Disagree) A: 2 50 B: 1 13 C: 0 11 D: -1 6 E: -2 0 Design style (2=Totally Agree，-2=Totally Disagree) A: 2 33 B: 1 24 C: 0 18 D: -1 4 E: -2 1 The part on Sony camera to be improved Discussion According to the research done, there were several conclusions that determined the aim of the research. Customer satisfaction is a crucial entity in an organisation and determines the progress of the company. The focus on satisfaction is mainly aimed at the quality and easiness of use. However, Sony cameras exhibited clear evidence showing they were easy to handle making it a plus for the company. More than half the group that participated believed the camera had good quality pictures. This gives the company a resting place on the quality of the camera’s output result. However, a substantial number of the users felt the cameras need to be more proficient since they were inclined to quality. The design displayed a crucial inclination when it came to a camera of choice. Many thought they would prefer a more stylish device when it came to quality. Customer satisfaction goes a long way too for a number in the group would buy a camera if a friend recommended the camera to them. The pricing of the camera was particularly high as shown in the deductions above where the many thought the pricing needs some change. The age bracket that owned cameras was the younger generation making it a priority to make sure they can afford the cameras. Good reputation of the camera was impressive hence the need to make sure the company’s name more reputable for the future clients. Conclusion According to the customers, point Sony has a high preference in the market followed by Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and others respectively. The research shows the company has cameras that are widely used as compared to the other competitor’s products. Sony’s brand awareness is unrivalled but it sure needs to keep up the bar for competition is always at bay. Sony needs to make amends in terms of the pricing owing to the need for the cameras preference. The research on customer satisfaction gives a detailed view that in future needs of the customer change. Therefore, the need to conduct the consumer satisfaction survey is important in the corporation. In addition, considering loyalty plan is mandatory for the company’s retention plan for customers. Sony will still need to maintain the investment in the advertising activities to sustain the exceptional loyalty among their customers. If after sale services and the prices of spare parts of the cameras are improved, Sony will see a larger share of the market moving towards making Sony the number one brand of choice. The main factors that show consumer-purchasing trends in the research were fashion, product features, and recommendations by friends. Recommendations Compared to the other brand in the market Sony has an advantage that gives the company a competitive edge when it comes to technology. Keeping up the pace will make the company a mover in the camera arena. Moreover, the company can increase the brand’s loyalty through after sales services and frequent surveys on the customer satisfaction in order to make shifts toward clients’ preferences. By doing so, the brand looks up to a new era of loyalty. 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