You can't outsource marketing.

[i_will_not_buy_iphone]

It seems like SE is intentionally making this release suck.
- They hire a PR firm (Wolfstar) who has no info in the product

("oh hey, there are some reviews there. maybe the will anser your questions you asked us in the comments...")

WTF? shouldn't they do the answering or facts posting? And the website is just a mashup of Flickr&Twitter&Blog&random people posting uninteresting stuff. (take a look at lenovoblogs.com OR apple.com for a good example of marketing)

And then there is the release. Some artsy design show and a artsy Johnny X. Whatever, they just bought those things from an external firm.
And Magnus: Senior product manager stating false facts on such simple things as RAM size.

I mean SE is a big, successful company, I think they should know how to market their stuff by now...

btw: i'll still get the X1 though. the iPhone crowd however will not, simply because marketing is so bad.

[n4v1n]

SE is not necessarily a successful company, although their phones are (ie. x1). They are facing some big financial problems if I'm not mistaken.

[Pinguino1]

Originally Posted by i_will_not_buy_iphone

It seems like SE is intentionally making this release suck.
- They hire a PR firm (Wolfstar) who has no info in the product

("oh hey, there are some reviews there. maybe the will anser your questions you asked us in the comments...")

WTF? shouldn't they do the answering or facts posting? And the website is just a mashup of Flickr&Twitter&Blog&random people posting uninteresting stuff. (take a look at lenovoblogs.com OR apple.com for a good example of marketing)

And then there is the release. Some artsy design show and a artsy Johnny X. Whatever, they just bought those things from an external firm.
And Magnus: Senior product manager stating false facts on such simple things as RAM size.

I mean SE is a big, successful company, I think they should know how to market their stuff by now...

btw: i'll still get the X1 though. the iPhone crowd however will not, simply because marketing is so bad.

Yeah I agree. I add that I haven't seen one single marketing ad anywhere. no tv, no magazine no paper, not even a flyer.

I went to dozens of wireless mobiles stores and 99% haven't even heard the word Xperia, not even the probable carriers AT&T and T-MO. managers and employees said Xperia what?

It seems that the only people who know about and will buy Xperia are the few hundred geeks that hang around in these forums.

Check the AT&T forum, on the Sony Ericcson area you can't find anyone even asking about.

I don't know why we are here talking about SE marketing IT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST!!

[norseman]

I totally agree with most of your comments, to me it is one of the worst balls up in marketing history.

They should have a couple of people whose sole job is to know the X1 and feed us some info tidbit everyday.

The links form the site don't even go to the right pages for the review and they have removed half of the links that were there!

I remember on the 30th of Sept, the day it was not really launched, they posted the info that they had on the 11th of Sept, I mean WTF? is that seriously the best they can do? IU actually posted something like that on the site it took them over 3 days to remove the post, which shows how little interest they have in the site.

Their simulator is about as much use as a three legged asthmatic ant carrying heavy shopping up hill in a hurricane.

Sam Oakley review has been the only decent thing to come from that site.

Yesterday the site was down for half a day or so.

SE profits were down 97% last quarter, S has been thinking for some time to split from E but I think tehre are some complications, S does really regret passing on the cybershot brand to the SE though.

However the X1 does have 384Mb of RAM, it is just that 128MB is inacessable to the main part of the system, it is reserved soley for CPU and GPU storage/calculations.

[WhyBe]

Originally Posted by norseman

However the X1 does have 384Mb of RAM, it is just that 128MB is inacessable to the main part of the system, it is reserved soley for CPU and GPU storage/calculations.

This is not verified. I wouldn't trust info from a random review or blog posting. It makes no technical sense either.

[Mweb586]

I wish that I could say SE's marketing strategy was good, but here in the US it's difficult to find someone else with a smartphone (no the iPhone doesn't count).

When I go to Europe I see massive ads on the sides of buildings by SE and Nokia, but here in the US billboards and TV commercials are about as far as it gets. I've seen half a dozen LG Dare ads, and only one or two for Blackberry. Never once have i seen a WM commercial.

No wonder smartphone penetration is under 5% over here.