Sony has officially started its Christmas offensive, launching a new campaign to drive consumer sales in what looks set to be a busy pre-Christmas period for retail.
Jeremy Senior, general manager of sales at Sony Australia, spoke about the brand’s key focus in the lead up to the festive season, which includes a consumer promotion on home entertainment and audio products, known as the Summertainment campaign.
As part of the promotion, consumers will receive a gift with purchase on selected Home Theatre, Docks and Car Audio products, while those who purchase a selected Bravia TV and spend $99 or more on another Sony product will receive a $300 Eftpos cash card.
“Our Summertainment campaign gives us a good umbrella to pull together all of our category-specific activities over the Christmas period,” said Senior. “We’re really excited.”
“It’s a great incentive for consumers who are looking for a product for gifting at Christmas time, and also a good opportunity for retailers who are looking for that additional sale.”
While Senior did not go as far as saying that such promotions were necessary to garner sales, he said that pre-Christmas promotional activity was a good way to open consumers’ wallets.
“It’s always a good opportunity to talk to consumers and encourage them differently. Obviously in the lead-up to Christmas it’s always nice to get something extra. We think consumers appreciate it at this time of the year and we’re happy to be bringing a promotion to the market that gives them that.”
With one in three retailers planning to start their traditional post-Christmas sales before Christmas this year (according to a Deloitte report released last week), Sony’s promotion will no doubt join a flurry of activity in retail stores in December.
Commenting on the concept of pre-Christmas retail discounting, Senior said, “It’s obviously a challenging retail market at the moment, and retailers are always looking at new ways to drive volume and encourage traffic.
“There’s a good opportunity at Christmas with a lot of consumers around looking to buy to try and drive that a bit harder. We’d hope that whatever strategies retailers choose to do around price positions that promotions such as the Summertainment campaign can help give an even better message to consumers.”