TransCity

Sony Electronics in the U.S. has announced specific plans to widen its reach within the U.S. Hispanic market.

It is launching a five-month mobile lifestyle tour through Southern California, called La Experiencia Sony (the Sony Experience). With a focus on education via immersion, the lifestyle tour will make stops at independent retailers and at events where people can try out and learn about Sony personal electronics products such as TVs, Vaio laptops, camcorders and personal-audio products.

In a tie-in with Time Inc.’s People en Espanol magazine, people can take photos of each other with Sony Cyber-shot cameras and get pictures of themselves on the magazine’s cover. Later this year, Sony will launch a Spanish-language website and distribute a bilingual shopping guide at retailers and to homes.

“We’re working on creating lifestyle imagery that is culturally relevant,” said Tanya Diggs, Sony Electronics’ director-corporate marketing. “It’s not just putting brown faces [in pictures]; it’s capturing moments.” Ms. Diggs said the images, which will be used by Sony and shared with retailers who can create their own point-of-sale materials, advertising templates and other merchandising efforts, capture special events in the lives of Hispanic families.

Sony is also finding insights in its multicultural focus groups. Members of the focus groups kept asking, for instance, whether the Sony Reader, a paperback-size device for downloading and reading books that is due out this month, can be used to download the Bible. That hadn’t occurred to Sony, Ms. Diggs said. “The only way to know that is to be part of the [multicultural] market,” she said.

Source: Advertising Age