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“Advertising and promotion alone will not sustain a bad product or a product that is not right for the times,” Morita once said. That, however, did not stop Morita from creating successful marketing campaigns that would help transform Sony from a local Japanese shop into a multinational corporate giant.
When Morita made his first visit to Europe in 1953, he came across N.V. Philips, a company that had started off as a small light bulb manufacturer in an even smaller rural Dutch town, but had become the world’s leading manufacturer of electronics. Upon his return to Japan, Morita set new sights for his company. He wanted Sony to become as big a global leader as N.V. Philips had become, particularly in the affluent American market.
One of Morita’s first steps towards his new goal was in changing the name of his company. His intuition told him that Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation would not have as broad an appeal as he wanted, and would most likely not catch on in the U.S. Instead, Morita wanted a name that could be recognizable and easy to remember in any language. Along with Ibuka, the two poured over dictionaries until they finally found something they liked.
Morita had stumbled across ‘sonus,’ the Latin word for sound. He thought its meaning was appropriate considering their industry, while its Western root would symbolize his desire to entire the global marketplace. However, he did not think it was as of yet catchy enough. To that end, Morita decided to combine ‘sonus’ with ‘Sonny,’ a nickname that had become popular amongst American kids. Morita thought ‘Sonny’ would help portray the image of the company as a youthful one, with lots of energy and a bright future ahead. With that, the Sony Corporation was formed.
When Morita opened Sony’s first store in New York City in 1952, the company still had few products to show. Nevertheless, Morita wanted to make a grand entrance. In another example of his marketing ingenuity, Morita decided to place a large Japanese flag above the store’s entrance. WWII had only recently ended, and the flag had a startling presence on Americans, which got them talking.
Journalists and hundreds of consumers came to see what the story was behind the flag. Morita also had specially customized white shirts made for all of his sales team, big enough to carry the company’s Walkman. Morita wanted to prove the device could easily be carried around. Soon, Sony’s new 13 cm micro-TV, along with their original Walkmans were flying off the shelves.
Ironically, Sony’s U.S. division considered the name ‘Walkman’ to be improper English, and changed the product to the ‘Soundabout’ for their domestic market. Similarly, Sony Sweden began using the name ‘Freestyle’, while the product became ‘Stowaway’ in Britain. Morita, however, did not like using different names in different countries, and insisted that the Walkman become the product’s universal name.
Today, the presence of the word ‘Walkman’ in almost every major dictionary is evidence of Morita’s marketing success.
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Marketing, I think, can be divided into two eras.
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