Thoughts From Sony’s Executive Roundtable

I recently flew out to beautiful San Diego, California to take part in an Executive Roundtable session hosted by President Stan Glasgow and EVP/CMO Mike Fasulo at the Sony headquarters. It was great to finally visit Sony’s new building and participate in discussion about the current state of the company. The building was very impressive architecturally, with incredible landscaping and various “green” features such as solar panels on the parking deck and a fountain that cascades recycled water collected from the air conditioner system. Upon arrival, I encountered a spacious lobby with quotes from Sony’s co-founder Akio Morita in a large font dressed upon the walls. I felt like I was in heaven – this was my dream world, and a place I would love to eventually work at one day.

After being whisked away into a green room slathered with lavish pastries, Starbucks coffee and other confectioneries, I met up with other major players in the press, including representatives from Bloomberg, NBC, LA Times, TWICE, Dealerscope, NPD, and other analyst/media outlets. It was quite surreal to be amongst these individuals – Sony Insider is a small site, and I’m rather young (most of these people had at least ten years of age on me or more). Regardless, I encountered a few familiar faces and felt quite comfortable in the various conversations that were taking place during breakfast.

Before the Roundtable, several of us embarked on a tour of Sony headquarters – there are eleven floors in total and each one has a large picture of Akio Morita near the elevator. It was very inspirational to see Sony making sure that employees had constant reminders of the company’s past – a subject that I find incredibly important to preserve. I swear I also noticed the make.believe “dot” sound played in the elevator.

One of the first areas of the building we visited was the large Sony Café on the top floor – it is a huge cafeteria and sushi bar with stylish white chairs and tables, booths, and a plethora of reasonably priced food and drink options. The whole setup looked truly regal, and reminded me of something you would expect to find at an institution such as Google. Sony even had a ping pong table and do tournaments every so often. There is also a large open air patio that connects to the Café and overlooks the beautiful surrounding San Diego mountains and valleys. The view is truly breathtaking.

I also was able to visit the offices of the Corporate Communications department, which is an area of Sony I speak with often. Thanks to Media Relations Specialist Ana Reyes for all of her assistance, help and dedication in making sure this trip was perfect in every way. Regardless, it was amusing to finally see the place that housed so many of the people who have helped Sony Insider. I saw the open cubicles of Internet Communications Specialist Jen Martin, Social Media Evangelist Sukhjit Ghag, Senior PR Specialist Honey Mae Kenworthy, and VP Dave Migdal and so forth. Interestingly enough, Dave doesn’t work in an office separate from the others like you’d expect a VP to have – he simply has a double cubicle with a sliding door. This is really perfect for him, because honestly he is a very friendly and humble person. They are all neighbors with each other and I could see various product and event strategies scribbled on dry erase boards. This kind of environment obviously leads to instant collaboration and group awareness of various matters.

After the tour, we were led to a large meeting room on the 9th floor that had Stan Glasgow, Mike Fasulo, several members of the Communications and Marketing teams within. I could tell this is one of the most important rooms in Sony, where I’m sure many key meetings and decisions have occurred. A large black oval shaped table (at least 20 feet long) was in the middle of the room, with more than a dozen seats situated around it and name tags for each individual in front of their seats. There were IPELA cameras situated around the room and long thin microphones on the table in front of the chairs with a push to talk button and volume controls. I wondered if anyone from Japan was watching.

The meeting kicked off with Stan and Mike speaking about some various topics. While there was heavy mention of 3D, I have decided to talk about that in a separate post as I have many questions that Sony is working on answering. Stay tuned.

One of the first items of interest was the mention of how Sony’s attempts to bring that synergistic mentality to their product offerings was really starting to pay off. Stan referenced how Sony and Best Buy sold 12,000 BRAVIA TV bundles that included a PS3, one game and a Blu-ray movie. It was the best bundle deal Best Buy has ever done and that Sony has ever done. Stan also mentioned one day record sales with another bundle during Fall of last year, where Sony sold a BRAVIA TV and a PS3 at SonyStyle for a great price, which helped Sony move three times more TV’s than the prior year.

BRAVIA Internet Video Link also seems to be faring well, with the service now nearly having one million users. There was no specific mention if these are one-time or reoccurring users, but it was still a positive sign for this product segment. I’ve always been very skeptical of the BIVL device because it has such diverse reviews online. When it was first released it was slammed by many who commented on its performance and lack of services, but recent reviews have pegged it as a great solution for those with broadband connections (above 3mbps) who want to enjoy SD/HD Netflix and Amazon content. The BRAVIA Internet Video Link will have an eventual successor this year that I will be reporting on later that will nullify many of the issues found in the first product, such as lack of Wi-Fi, compatibility with only Sony TV’s, and limited connectivity.

There was also mention that “green” initiatives are faring well, and Sony has identified that younger consumers are still leaning towards products and designs with environmentally conscious features. Stan also stated that the company has collected more than 25 million pounds of electronics products for recycling during its “Take Back” campaign.

Mike Fasulo chimed in about Sony’s marketing efforts, which have been going extraordinarily well according to several of his statistics. I think Mike is more powerful in Sony than the public realizes and demonstrated to me a real calculative mentality that is obviously razor sharp from constant interaction with Sony’s amazing researchers. I was pleased to finally observe him speak, and also noticed he was thinner and without a mustache these days.

Sony is committing more focus on the retail shop front, which he feels Sony can do now because they embraced innovative marketing strategies. Sony communicates with two thousand people on a regular basis on future products and ideas, which started a few years ago.

The metrics were very positive for Sony’s HDNA and the Panel of Experts (with Justin Timberlake, Peyton Manning, etc) – in their surveys, consumers had nearly 60% recall on those commercials, which is quite impressive considering 20-25% is the average in the consumer electronics industry. Retention of the Sony commercials has the ability to bring consumers to retail; there was a 15% call to action, when the industry average is below 10%. Fasulo proudly mentioned that sales rose nearly 13% during the “Panel of Experts” campaign. There was also mention of Sony launching a new advertising campaign in April for digital imaging, and heavy marketing efforts during the Summer and Holidays for 3D.

There was also quite a bit of conversation about the upcoming Sony Dash.

Someone asked “Why is Dash stationary?” and the answer was that through consumer input, people said it makes a lot of sense to do a stationary device that can be moved around the house. Sony made a choice based on this, and the general feeling in the room that this was just the beginning for Dash. In testing, they wanted to identify a different type of display product, and didn’t want it to be a picture frame. Internet connectivity with rich services to back it up and alarm clock functionality was a big factor.

I inquired if Sony had any plans to court Hotel chains with the Dash, and was told that it would initially be put forth towards consumers, and could be a possible option for businesses in the future. I think that would be a brilliant idea if Sony could manage to hook up with a hotel chain and have the Dash standard in every room – imaging having hotel services available on the Dash, along with 1,500 other apps and Netflix. It seems like a no brainer.

There was also some discussion during the Roundtable about how Sony is going to change a lot of things with dealers. I took notes on this, but I feel TWICE has summarized it far better than I could have:

Looking to be more responsive to the needs of A/V specialty and custom-installation dealers, Sony marketing executives announced at the company’s annual line show here, Tuesday, that its minimum advertised pricing (MAP) programs on television displays initiated last fall have begun to pay dividends and will be expanded into other categories going forward.

Mike Fasulo, Sony executive VP and chief marketing officer, said at a press roundtable during the event that specialty dealers have embraced Sony MAP policies, which offer real penalties for non-compliance across a wider swath of products and model than the SURE and SSPG programs used in the past.

“Every note I’ve gotten from a specialist has been a thank you, in terms of MAP,” Fasulo said.

He said Sony just announced the expansion of the MAP program into home audio/video as well as TV and is now studying the likelihood of expanding it into the digital imaging category, as well.

“We are introducing a program on our [DI] premium products that will require an in-store demonstration,” he said.

“The specialist retailer is extremely important to me, it is extremely important to our industry, and it is going to be vital to 3D,” Fasulo said, responding to market conditions that forced the recent closing of the MyerEmco chain. “I think demonstrations are going to make a comeback and this is going to be multichannel-oriented where it is going to be Internet and brick-and-mortar.”

In part to help A/V specialty dealers, Fasulo said Sony’s TV lines are shipping three months earlier than ever this year, which should help alleviate some dealers that were left short of inventory prior to the Super Bowl period.