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Posted by blackburst@aol.com on 07/13/06 15:32
A lesson in marketing!
Sony's BetaMax was superior to its later-introduced competitor, JVC's
VHS.
JVC aggressively licensed its system to other manufacturers,
undercutting Sony's comparatively higher licensing costs and lack of
marketing aggressiveness.
JVC aggressively courted studios to release titles in the VHS system,
and ultimately decided to institute a program of low-cost super-titles
(starting with ET, as I recall), dropping the average cost of
prerecorded titles from $79.95 or $39.95 to $19.95, scoring bigtime.
Virtually all titles dropped to $19.95 or lower after this.
While blank BetaMax tapes were going for $24.95, blank VHS tapes were
stealing the market at $7.95 and less.
JVC also aggressively offered discounts to the then-mushrooming
independent video stores to carry VHS titles, and in time the ratio
available in stores became about 85-15 in favor of VHS. Sony eventually
had to license VHS from JVC!
Sony managers were surprised, startled and angry about JVC's rapid
theft of the market, according to some conversations I had at NAB this
year, and they never again dropped the ball like they did in 1977-1980.
Sony still maintains a respecatble showing in the home market, but they
still own a large share of the pro market, while JVC struggles. What
goes around...
No matter how good the product, it still needs to be marketed
successfully.
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