By Patrick Avenell

SYDNEY: With six days to go before their Bravia/PlayStation 3 promotion ends, Sony has thrown a javelin at their pre-Olympics competitors. In a release reminding consumers that there is only a week to go, Sony’s Toby Barbour criticised the lack of appeal of their main rivals’ promotions and highlighted a perceived weakness in their product ranges.

Since the giveaway began on 1 July 2008, Sony’s website reports that over 27,100 PlayStation 3s (PS3) have been redeemed. Assuming all people that purchase a qualifying model are redeeming their PS3, this equates to around 1,087 Sony Bravias being sold each day this month.

Armed with those figures, Sony Australia head of strategy and brand development, Toby Barbour took a rare swing at competitors such as Panasonic and LG, who themselves have been running pre-Olympics consumer promotions on certain products.

“We [Sony] believe our offer of a guaranteed PS3, when you purchase any full HD Bravia LCD TV, is far more appealing to consumers than many of the other ‘opportunity to win’ [his quotation marks] promotions currently on the market,” said Barbour.

Barbour then continued to criticise his rivals’ product range, which the Sony strategist believes is lacking.

“We [Sony] are in a unique position to be able to offer consumers what no other consumer electronics company can — the combined entertainment power of the PS3 with the ultimate full HD viewing experience of a Bravia LCD TV,” said Barbour.

Two promotions that Barbour is referring to include Panasonic’s Swim2Win and LG’s Ultimate Spectator promotion. Although Panasonic are giving away over $3 million, Swim2Win is a ‘go in the draw’-type promotion, rather than a straight-out free product with purchase.

In a current LG promotion, consumers “get up to $300 on a Visa pre-paid card on selected full HD LCD TVs”, as quoted from their website. In LG’s defence, it is worth noting that this is not an ‘opportunity to win’ promotion, such as the ones that Barbour talks about.

At the time of publication, there were 7,714 PlayStation 3s remaining.