Sony Ericsson's Product Strategy

The new Xperia Play from Sony Ericsson is another wonderful example of Sony Ericsson's product strategy that I mentioned here in 2007. Sony which realised long back that mobile or handheld devices will be the key driving force for all the gadgets in future, was quick to integrate it's sub-brands with its mobile phones. Walkman, Cybershot, Playstation, Viao, Bravia are all well-established brands from the house of Sony. However, in the mobile phone category, there was no strong differentiation for Sony when compared to Nokia's and Motorola's of the world. iPhone came much later if you remember. So why not integrate and leverage the brand equity created by the sub-brands and create a distinctive competitive advantage in the mobile phone category. Wonderful product differentiation strategy. We saw the birth of Walkman Phone followed by Cyber Shot Phone and now Xperia Play which is Xperia + Playstation.

With 4G in place, personal entertainment and watching video on the go is becoming even more popular, its not too far when we'll see a Bravia Phone soon. The Bravia Phone can even be Sony's answer to Tablets. Unlike iPad, the Bravia Tablet can strongly position itself as an On-the-go Entertainment device with all the goodness of Bravia TV inbuilt in it. Am dead sure as and when mobile computing becoomes mainstream, Viao Phone will be made available too. Anyways. Let Sony do what it does best. Build great brands.

Here's the new Xperia Play commercial.

Cheers.