brand analysis of Samsung and apple similar to this paper
Malveaux, Jr. Reginald, J.
UMGC: MBA 640 9046 Innovation Through Marketing and Technology
Professor, Dr. Russ, M.
07 August 2021
Topic: Project 2: Conducting a Brand Audit
w/ updated References List, Appendices and Graph
Sony PlayStation
Brand personality
Band personalities are certain human traits linked to a particular brand name, and it is
something that consumers can relate to in the market. It usually assists firms in shaping how
consumers feel about their commodities, service, or mission. They usually elicit an emotional
response to specific customer segments to incite positive actions that benefit the company.
Individuals tend to buy a brand if its personality is similar to their own. PlayStation’s brand
personality can be explained through various factors, including up-to-date, intelligence,
confidence, leadership, and upper-class characteristics. The up-to-date factor links to the exciting
brand personality dimension. PlayStation ensures it offers customers exciting features in their
gaming consoles by updating their versions since consumers always identify with trending
brands (Palomba, 2016).
The upper-class factor for the PlayStation brand is linked to the sophistication brand
personality dimension since the brand produces sophisticated designs which will attract more
consumers. For instance, the PlayStation 5 release depicted the company’s sophisticated design,
which involved various shapes, including circles, triangles, crosses, and squares. It also rippled
with blue light, suggestive of explosive and untapped power and an ocean-like curvature (Peel,
2021). PlayStation also identifies with scalar progression brand personality. For instance, its
progressive versions included PlayStation one, two, three, four, and the recent five. The brand
also has a leadership personality since it has been in the console video games market for longer
than other competitors such as Microsoft’s Xbox.
PlayStation Brand Image
Generally, a company’s brand image arises from consumers’ perceptions regarding the
firm (Mabkhot, Shaari & Salleh, 2017). The initial brand image associated with PlayStation is its
superiority since consumers consider it the most advanced and powerful brand than its other
console and video game industry competitors. Secondly, customers believe that PlayStations are
the most up-to-date brand due to their trend of releasing stable PlayStation versions that can last
between seven to twelve years before they release the next one. Finally, PlayStation’s FIFA video
game also highly contributes to the brand’s image since it is the most played game on console
and the two entities are interlinked.
PlayStation’s Brand Identity
Brand identity arises from a firm’s goals, vision, and mission since it helps to highlight
the visible brand elements, including color, design, and logo (Essamri, McKechnie &
Winklhofer, 2019). These aspects assist in distinguishing the brand among its target consumers.
Sony PlayStation’s brand identity is marketing itself as the best digital and interactive
entertainment firm through its commodities and services. Secondly, PlayStation is also an
innovative brand. It usually established video game consoles from advanced technology
procedures, including PlayStation VR, which allows users to experience quality services while
using the consoles. Thirdly, Sony PlayStation’s brand identity also results from its logo,
representing brilliance, passion, joy, charm, and elegance. Its logo leaves a significant effect on
adults’ and kids’ eyes. For instance, bright colors assist individuals in distinguishing objects
quickly. It also helps in attracting children compared to other colors and remains as a
communicative aspect. Finally, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s parent brand establishes world-
class video games played on its consoles. It makes it easier for consumers to identify with its
products than its parent brand name (Holt, 2020).
Brand
differentiation
Product differentiation is also a crucial aspect in ensuring competitive advantage in an
intensively competitive environment. For instance, Sony uses differentiation as a generic strategy
to attain more consumers. This strategy involves producing unique commodities compared to
other products to ensure they are more attractive and profitable. For example, PlayStation’s
success arises from its novelty and uniqueness through innovative techniques (Meyer, 2017).
Therefore, what makes Sony different from other firms in the gaming console industry, is that it
also produces mobile phones, digital cameras, and televisions, which ensures it maintains its
gaming consoles’ values. Apart from PlayStation, it also offers various entertainment
commodities such as music; hence it is not limited to only games. Through multiple products, the
firm is also able to increase sales since its customer base is diverse. Consequently, brand
differentiation assists the company in attaining new customers and increases brand loyalty.
Brand positioning
This aspect deals with the theoretical vision that a company wants to inflict on its target
consumers (Fayvishenko, 2018). It usually relies on the geographical rest of the firm. For
instance, PlayStation strategically positions itself as an entity that aims at inaugurating a stake in
most markets globally. Most of the product’s target market believes PlayStation is a global brand
because Sony can satisfy a wide consumer range. The firm’s image also has a vital role in
ensuring it is well-positioned globally due to its innovation. Therefore, a well-positioning
structure assists organizations to favorably compete among their competitors.
Brand communication
Brand communication focuses on various practices that ensure effective customer
relationships. For instance, such procedures include consumer reviews about the product,
advertisements, and social media strategies. Sony established its communication foundation with
its PlayStation consumers. For example, the firm shortened the product’s name to PS, making it
easier for consumers to pronounce. Its PS5 line majorly targeted hardcore gamers aged between
fifteen and thirty. It also has numerous social media campaigns that enhance its product
awareness among customers. Sony also ensures a lasting relationship with suppliers such as
Terra soft solution for its operating systems, Nvidia for Graphic Cards, and IBM, which supplies
its processors. Its numerous branches ensure easy accessibility to its gaming consoles and a
constant supply of various products.
Brand loyalty
Studies depict that PlayStation has high ranks in the gaming console industry, and brand
loyalty among its users has contributed significantly to its success. PlayStation has the highest
brand loyalty margin over its competitors. For instance, in 2020, PlayStation had a loyalty
percentage of 40.7%, Xbox had 31%, and Nintendo had 30.4% (Sudi, 2017). The fascinating
factor in the gaming console industry is that one out of three owners of gaming systems were
always interested in purchasing PlayStation 5. Comparing Sony PS5 and other competitors, one
out of four individuals were interested in Xbox gaming consoles, and 8% of individuals were
interested in next-gen consoles.
Brand Equity
Sony has a highly valued brand equity because it has operated in the gaming industry for
a long time. The company’s estimated value in the gaming segment generates about $81.7 billion
annually, but in particular, after five months of selling PS5, the PlayStation product line attained
a value of $25 billion. Sony depicted that since launching PS5, it made 7.8 million units
shipments, including 4.5 million within the launch quarter and 3.3 million in the three months
ended March 31. Likewise, PS4 shipments for the whole of 2019 dropped from 13.5 million to
5.7 million due to its focus on its next-gen device (Batchelor, 2021). Most of the brand’s earnings
come from the gaming industry; hence its equity highlights the premium value from selling its
PlayStation product line.
Microsoft (Xbox)
Brand personality
Microsoft aims at inspiring entertainment for its consumers’ creative abilities, which
significantly contributes to its brand personality. It is among the many firms that manufacture the
market-leading gaming consoles that ensure optimum user experience. Xbox 360 identifies with
two brand personality scales, including strategic and maverick. The strategic category involves
personality traits such as confidence, success, corporate and contemporary. Secondly, the
Maverick scale included personality characteristics such as uniqueness, originality, imagination,
independence, and ahead-of-the-curve. Such brand personalities are the realistic descriptions of
Xbox products since Microsoft added player achievements, downloadable video game sections,
and quality graphics in its Xbox 360 line (Palomba, 2016). The firm concentrates on these traits
and takes advantage of them to re-invent its brand image and pass its brand personality to its
consumers.
Brand image
Brand image is crucial in influencing consumers’ attitudes in buying the company’s
products. The Xbox line has an excellent brand image that attracts more customers to purchase
its consoles, but Sony outshines it. Regardless of the stiff competition in the gaming consoles.
Xbox brand image is usually associated with graphics, power and great games that appeal to
hardcore gamers. This brand designs its consoles to be the best through technical capabilities that
surpass its competitors. The primary image portrayed by Xbox is that of competence. Numerous
games dominated gamers’ mindsets, and it was evident that individuals opted for Xbox, and
some of the outstanding features people focused on included high-quality graphics and easy
connectivity. Other users chose Xbox because of its availability for this console and the overall
experience they would get instead of Microsoft’s brand (Jain et al., 2011). Therefore, it can be
stated that most consumers believed that Microsoft had an excellent image because of utilizing
innovation in its production methods which increased the brand’s reputation to its consumers.
Brand identity
Microsoft’s brand identity touches on various features that describe the brand as a
product. For instance, such features include logos, color schemes, and style. Generally, excellent
branding leverages emotions to build a strong brand identity. As the parent company to Xbox,
Microsoft has a unique logo always accompanied by the firm’s name. The color scheme used in
the logo also appeals to most consumers. Therefore, it significantly contributes to establishing
the firm’s unique identity that cannot be copied with any other organization. The logo’s
uniqueness enhances the brand’s visual language and its identity. Generally, logos have a critical
role in marketing a product because they symbolize the interaction between consumers and the
firm. Xbox’s brand identity also arises from the provision of attractive commodities. For
instance, the firm produces good-looking consoles that largely contribute to the brand’s identity
that individuals always want to associate themselves with due to its attractiveness.
Brand differentiation
Differentiation strategies deal with organizations distancing their brands from other
competitors in the industry. For instance, Microsoft adopted numerous measures to ascertain that
it offers next-generation gaming consoles to compete in the industry favorably. The company has
a strong moat, which provides a competitive advantage that mitigates the competitive force
allowing it to attain large profits. The organization also takes advantage of broad differentiation
as a generic technique to enhance its competitive gap. For instance, it manufactures various
gaming
consoles due to the different
components that support 4K graphics and those with a
solid-state drive that enables customers to load video games quickly. The product’s
expensiveness made the firm invest in XSS, a digital, less powerful, and inexpensive gaming
console. This movie depicted that Xbox differentiated itself from competitors by targeting high-
and low-income earners (Reeves, 2020). Determining organizational products is essential since it
allows the firm to route to the customer base directly. There is something extra that the company
offers that other players in the industry cannot provide.
Brand positioning
A brand’s position in a market is crucial in ensuring its products’ profitability in the
market. It usually establishes association in peoples’ minds and makes product occupation in
consumers’ minds due to its designs. Microsoft strategically positions itself in the gaming
console industry by offering unique commodities such as Xbox series X. For example, XSX is
positioned as Microsoft’s global most powerful console because of its stunning visuals that
attract consumers and the exceptional loading and transition speed that gamers require in the
contemporary world. Xbox’s brand position also arises because it ensures its hardcore gamers are
delighted with its brilliant gaming consoles, which allows it to compete in the console war with
other competitors such as Sony. Microsoft perceives that brand positioning gives it an advantage
in ensuring product uniqueness from what competitors offer hence allowing companies to get a
tight grip in the market (Duhé, 2018).
Brand
communication
Microsoft adopts an extensively integrated marketing mix for its Xbox products. For
instance, it uses eight primary communication techniques to pass information to consumers
regarding the Xbox brand. To market, the Xbox series heavily depends on advertisements, social
media platforms, experiences, events, and other audience-centered communication techniques.
The brand has a global community that enables it to communicate its values to its consumers.
This community includes social media platforms, for instance, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Microsoft uses these platforms to make relevant communications to the general public and its
target market. Brand communication helps consumers know about a commodity, increasing
brand awareness (Mediavilla & Morillas, 2018).
Brand loyalty
Microsoft has been a critical player in the gaming console for a while and envisions
inspiring people in the creativity enjoyment. The company’s ability to offer consumers consoles
to enjoy established a solid consumer base within the market. The stiff competition from Sony’s
PlayStation threatens its brand loyalty since PS already has a vast market share in the industry. It
might be hard for it to attain such not unless it embraces immense innovation. Sony’s consumers
are intensely loyal to the brand; however, Microsoft focuses on evaluating the brand while
considering innovative ways of doing things and offerings. Xbox has also developed a strong
customer foundation for individuals who want to be linked to the brand while using it. It has won
some attention from its customers, which assisted it to retail its share of loyal consumers.
Brand equity
This section evaluates the brand’s value as consumers perceive it. For instance, Microsoft
offers unique and advanced gaming consoles to its users, and the Xbox brand uniqueness has a
significant impact on consumers’ mindsets. The brand’s uniqueness assists the company in
increasing its brand value. Microsoft’s brand equity links to organizational monetary value and
financial position. For example, Microsoft has a stable financial position globally. It is ranked
third globally with a current value of $571.25 billion, indicating a strong and competitive
industry. Xbox is part of Microsoft’s, but it undervalues this division since Satya Nadella does
not consider it his primary focus as the company’s CEO. Therefore, Microsoft never releases
exact figures regarding Xbox’s equity, making it hard to estimate its net worth. However,
statistics state that if Microsoft considers selling this brand, it could cost as much as $23 billion
(Luke, 2017).
Analysis of Sony and Microsoft’s brand performance
There were about 2.7 billion gamers globally in 2020, and the video game industry went
through a renaissance. Billion-dollar investments were made to transform various fronts in this
industry. There were monumental times when the cycle flipped the page to the next-generation
consoles for the console gaming category. Xbox and Nintendo put up a good fight, but the
background of gaming console sales points to an extended era of PlayStation dominance. PS sits
very comfortably on top of the rank, with the PS2 alone experiencing immense sales than Xbox
360 and Xbox one combine, as evident in figure 1.
However, over time, Sony has widened its gap between its competitors, and the spread in
unit sales between PS3 and Xbox 360 stood at 1.6 million, favoring Sony. In the next cycle, Sony
attained further dominance, with a difference between PS4 and Xbox One sales at 63.7 million
units. Therefore, while considering brand performance in the gaming console industry,
PlayStation has better performance records (Ali, 2020). Since Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s
Xbox are significant competitors to Slate Inc, they exhibit a significant impact in the
industry
because of the number of customers they serve annually. Similarly, the firm’s net sales signify
that they two are substantial participants in the market.
Brand extensions
Brand extension act as marketing plans whereby a firm marketing a product with a well-
established image uses similar brand names in a different product category (Ahn, Park & Hyun,
2018). A significant decision between Xbox and PlayStation as Slate Inc. competitors is
designing attractive packaging materials as a brand extension which also increases profitability.
In particular, Sony is considering a brand extension of its PlayStation’s product line by
discussions with television channels to have an after-pub show targeting the 18-24 age group
gamers. It also aims to launch a TV awards ceremony, and it is interested in involving other
gaming companies but retains the central sponsor post in the show. PlayStation has been set up
temporarily for fans to use at some Premier League grounds. It is also developing permanent
sites at fourteen of the twenty clubs in the league (Campbell, 2019).
When it comes to Xbox, it has been perceived as one of the most successful Microsoft
products once it was launched in 2001. The company also planned to use the Xbox magic to
derive profitability from the good vibes attached to the Xbox name and use it in other products.
For instance, Microsoft launched music and video stores and named them Xbox Video and Xbox
Music. While these services integrate with Microsoft’s game consoles, they are also available on
Windows devices that do not do with Xbox. Other Windows 8 games are also branded with the
Xbox name, even though cross-play between the PC and console does not exist. The games
integrate with Xbox Live, but that is about as far as the Xbox in them goes. Therefore, from these
strategies depicted by Microsoft, it is evident that the company uses the Xbox brand in non-
console and non-gaming situations to assist the company. It is a positive brand extension
technique that can expand its sales in various products (Farner, 2017).
Conclusion and recommendations to Slate Inc
In conclusion, the brand elements depicted in this study regarding Sony’s PlayStation and
Microsoft’s Xbox can be crucial aspects while considering consumer needs. Slate Inc. can use
some of these aspects to its advantage as a minor player in the console gaming industry. The
recommendation to Slate Inc. would be to focus on enhancing some of its brand elements. For
instance, it can opt for an innovative brand personality since it is not yet a well-established
brand. Being more innovative and focusing on particular features not yet tapped by PS and Xbox
can become more profitable to the organization. Secondly, it can also build a brand image that
incorporates the enjoyment perspective and an innovative powerhouse since most modern
generations consider such aspects before purchasing gaming consoles. Slate Inc. should also
have an attractive brand logo that will identify and stick in customers’ minds. The fourth
recommendation is to consider a brand differentiation strategy to make its products more
appealing. Finally, Slate Inc. can also borrow the brand communication techniques used by the
two key players in the gaming console industry and opt for social media platforms as the primary
way of communicating with their consumers.
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Appendix
Table 1: Comparison of the brand elements between PlayStation and Xbox
Branding elements PlayStation Xbox
Brand Personality Champions itself as an
innovative brand with a
sophisticated
brand personality
Identifies with the enjoyment
brand personality
Brand Image Consumers have a brand image
of PlayStations as an
innovation powerhouse in the
gaming console industry.
Perceived as a source of
enjoyment in the gaming
industry
Brand identity Well identifies itself through its
brand logo that includes its
name and various colors,
which signify brilliance,
passion, joy, charm, and
elegance.
It was identified through its
logo, which incorporates its
firm’s name and has significant
color schemes.
Brand
differentiation
Producing unique commodities
compare to other products in
It offers various gaming
consoles due to the different
the market either through
attractive shapes and curves.
components that support 4K
graphics and those with a solid-
state drive.
Brand positioning Positions itself as the market
leader in the gaming console
industry and a global product.
positions itself by offering
unique commodities considered
as the most powerful console
because of stunning visuals
Brand
communication
Uses social media platforms
such as Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook, and YouTube
Uses social media platforms
such as Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook, and YouTube
Brand loyalty Consumers have high loyalty
levels
Consumers’ loyalty is moderate
Brand equity Stable revenues that are easy to
predict and its sales have
increased over time.
It has stable revenues, but it is
hard to estimate the Xbox
product line value since it does
not release the statistics.
Figure 1: Approximated lifetime sales on home console units
Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/multi-billion-dollar-console-gaming-market/