Branding Blunder: Creative Technology VS. Apple
Posted by Sant Qiu in : Branding Positioning on October 5, 2007 , trackbackRecently I was interviewed by Marketing Magazine, a local magazine in Singapore that keeps close tabs on the marketing strategies companies of all sizes use to reach out to their consumers. I thought that this is an excellent case study of how important positioning, branding and marketing are for your business.
For their feature story on Branding, the magazine asked for my comments on Creative Technology’s (renowned for its sound card and MP3 players, and most recently for its legal tussle with Apple) branding efforts. While I’m a fan of Creative, I have to say that their branding leaves much to be desired. In particular, comparing the arch rivals of Creative Tech’s MP3 players vs. Apple’s iPod, it is easy to see where Creative’s branding efforts had gone wrong. Below is a simple comparison of its rival’s branding moves.
Apple Inc. (A marketing and branding savvy company)
1. Understands the target market—young people want to be hip and cool. So they created a hip and cool positioning for iPod.
2. Very sleek and minimalist cover design—enhancing the hip and cool image.
3. Great ultra hip and cool TV ad, using black dancing silhouettes (all the better to contrast with Apple’s corporate white) against a colorful background + hit song of the moment ‘Hey Mama soundtrack performed by one of the hottest groups, the Black Eyed Peas.
4. Very focused in the beginning, starting with only one color, one model: The white iPod. This makes it very recognizable and easy to brand.
5. Special edition signed by U2 (very hip and cool band).
6. Featured in many hip TV shows.
Creative Technology Pte Ltd (A tech focused company)
1. Don’t understand their consumers’ desires, preferring to focus on product features, etc (appealing to logic, instead of emotions) and with no strong positioning.
2. Tacky cover designs. Responding to iPod’s sleek design, they asked their own engineers to design their new cover design! Huge mistake! Naming their products ‘Zen’ doesn’t mean that they will inherit the Zen essence.
3. Bizarre TV ads that consumers can’t relate to: one series of ad went along the lines of ‘something you really need’ and ‘Panda Rhapsody’, an ad using a panda bear listening to its MP3 player.
4. Unfocused and fragmented: Zen Jukebox, Zen Nano, Zen Touch, MuVo Slim, MuVo TX.. etc (confusing consumers with too many choices)
5. Special edition signed by Creative Technology’s CEO Sim Wong Hoo… (what?!?)
6. Almost non-existent.
While Creative Technology first came up with MP3 players, they lost out their pioneer status advantage due to incompetent branding and marketing strategies. Apple has always been an innovative company when it comes to technology. But more important than that, it has always been a company that is close to their consumers, understanding their desires.
On the other hand, Creative has no strong retail experience. Its earlier massive success, the SoundBlaster, was a technological breakthrough, but it was not really a retail consumer product. SoundBlaster is sold to computer manufacturers, not end users. Most end users don’t even know whether the soundcard inside their CPU is a SoundBlaster or not. Of course, there are those who demand technological excellence and insist on having the SoundBlaster. Unfortunately, they form the minority.
Sadly for a hip product such as an MP3 player, Creative chose to take the same approach—focusing on technology only, instead of combining it with a massive branding and marketing campaign. It is important to note that Creative’s MP3 players have received many awards and critical acclaims. BUT it sorely lacked the ‘street cred’, the approval from the target market.
How many times did you hear someone say “I really want to get the Zen / MuVo / Jukebox”? You don’t hear much of that because they all want an iPod.
That is why Apple’s iPod holds near to 90% market share. Just take a look at the TV ads from both rivals and you’ll understand what I mean by Apple understanding the consumer’s mind, while Creative missed it totally.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WYHUBlpid8
Cool, Hip, Colourful, Very In!
VS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JnGepYVB1A
What’s that about?
So the next time you think that by focusing only on delivering the best product, you will be guaranteed success, think again. Creating powerful positioning, branding and marketing strategies for your business can make a HUGE difference!
Dear Sant,
Infact a very nice comparision of Apple I POD Vs creative music phones.
Your analysis makes me think “what should be an ideal stratergy for Creative to increase its market share “.
I beleive : Following things may work out:
1. Build a strong target position.
2. Market features, advanategs and benefits.
What are your views that acn be done to revamp Creative MP3 player.
Regards,
Ankur.
Hi Ankur, it depends on what Creative wants to achieve. One of Creative’s strengths is technological engineering and innovation. That is why they keep coming up with great innovations like the SoundBlaster, Aurvana, etc, that have won many awards and rave reviews from technological community . However, they are very bad in the branding/retailing game.
So they can either focus on being a tech company and come up with great innovations and license their technologies to other retailing companies, or they definitely have to get better marketing department. Their marketing behaviours so far showed that they are being run with engineering mindset. They sorely need some marketing savvy people.
If they want to be real player in the retailing market, they must be willing to spend on great product packaging (design) as well as the “cool” factor.