Abstract
Founded in 1946 in Tokyo by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, SONY is the world number 2 in the electronic market. In 1979, the company create the walkman, the CD player in 1982 and the Blu-ray technology in 2003.
The company also had developed activities in video-games, computing, mobile phone (thanks to a joint-venture with Ericsson in 2001), music edition and picture production.
Sony Corporation's global revenue is $88.205 billion, in 2010 ("Consolidated financial results for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2010", Sony Corporation).
Sony Corporation is an international company which has built a strategy around several activities and sub-brands. First an examination of Sony corporation brand architecture and brands elements is essential to better understand the company strategy. Then an analysis will be done regarding Sony Walkman ® brand architecture and brand elements in addition to two of its competitors; Apple iPod and Creative mp3 players. At last, we will study Walkman® positioning and brand equity.
"Brand architecture is a powerful tool that can help companies organize various brands within their business portfolios and focus on strategic goals for individuals' brands" (Petromelli and Morrison, 2002). Sony‘s umbrella architecture underlines that Sony has a multi-brand level architecture. I chose the umbrella architecture instead of the Keller's brand architecture because the aim was to study Sony's sub-brands and not each of Sony's products. The sub-brands were shown in blue and green.
Walkman ® Sony's sub-brand refers to portable audio and video players (mp3/mp4 players) and also a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The engineer Nobutoshi Kihara build the product for Akio Morita, Sony's co-chairman who wanted to listen to operas during his frequent plane trips as it's explain by Hormby, T. (2006) in "the story behind the Sony Walkman". It was launched for the first time in June 1979.
