SATORU ARAI

MANAGING DIRECTOR SONY MALAYSIA

How is the company coping in the current economic climate without compromising its brand presence?

Given the constantly changing business environment, we closely monitor for any market and consumer behaviour changes and react accordingly to meet them without compromising on our brand culture.

Should brands be packaged differently, not only demographically but emotionally?

The trigger for today’s consumers is unlike before. Engaging today’s consumers is about adding value towards their needs and wants in their everyday experiences. As such it is very important for us to catch the customer’s emotions in order to add value towards their daily activities.

what is the most significant aspect of creating powerful, effective branding?

Consumer’s preference these days are diverse, so a mass branding approach does not work anymore. In the past, it is easy to engage someone famous to be a brand ambassador.

These days we have to identify different segments and identify key opinion leaders that consumers can relate to in order to reach out to them.

In an increasingly transparent world, how can brands strengthen their brand equity?

Sony strongly believes that our employees play a big part in strengthening our brand equity. Each employee has to be passionate about the brand first and that passion will resonate with end users and drive the purchase decision based not only on catalogue specifications. We want consumers to be fascinated by our products, services and message.

what makes a brand memorable given the short attention span and all sorts of content screaming at customers?

In my opinion, we have to at least keep up with the expectations of each consumer or even surpass it. Each consumer has a different mindset towards the brand, but it is our responsibility to keep the brand memorable to them and continue to WOW them.