Reference no: EM133238555

In 2006, Sony decided to launch in the Netherlands its white PlayStation edition and did it peculiarly. In the ad, they decided to show a pale woman holding a black woman on her face making her look submissive. The text included, "PlayStation Portable, White is coming." It caused outrage because of its blatant show of ignorance. Sony later reported that they wanted to highlight the contrast between the two colors. While it may be construed as racism, this was not an effective way to promote any new item.

Sony should have used these steps to avoid any raucuos with the media and any negative light shown to the company.

Identify an issue, discuss alternatives and set out research objectives- In this case, if this adverstisement was an alternate idea they should have came together collectively to discuss the potential results.

Gather information. -By gathering information, they should have used other companies successes on how they advertised there electronic items.

Organize and analyze information and data. - By gathering this information and date, Sony could have avoided this disaster by appropriating there findings.

Present findings. - With the teams finding, collectively they must have failed to think about the consequences. While they might not have intended to demoralize a race, the direction they took was wrong and perhaps lethal to the new item.

Make research-based decisions.- They must have skipped this step because Sony's marketing team did not do enough research because there were many other ways to shows the new color for the electronic system.

The solution for this marketing travesty is to meet with the press and apologize for the misinterpreted advertisement. Also, Sony should have pushed for a ban on the failed ad and perhaps regroup and come up with a more cultural allowed ad. Sony states, "A variety of different treatments have been created as a campaign to either highlight the whiteness of the new model or contrast the black and the white models. Central to this campaign has been the creation of some stunningly photographed imagery, that has been used on large billboards throughout Holland."

Explain how this market research failure was similar or different to Sony Betamax

Product: Sony Betamax

Company: Sony

Year: 1975

Introduction: United States