Sony Ericsson Phones to Build on the Popularity of Walkman brand

With the mobile phone marketplace increasingly competitive and the major phone manufacturers needing to diversify and update continually, we look at Sony Ericsson's use of the Walkman brand to keep at the head of the pack.

Coke, Nike, McDonalds, Starbucks and the Sony Walkman – perhaps these brands have the status as the most recognisable and iconic brands of the last century. To attain such a prestige position in the social consciousness is a marketers dream and one that should be capitalised on. Take the Sony Walkman, a brand that emerged first in the late 1970's and attained an unparalleled position as the most recognised consumer or electronic good throughout the 80's and 90's. Even with the emergence of MP3 technology and the shift of music from cassettes and CD's to files, the Walkman brand still pervades in the mind of those of us old enough to remember the mid 1980's.

Little wonder, then than Sony are reincarnating the Walkman in as many formats as possible to try and capitalise on the brand awareness that the Walkman still manages to conjure up. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the recent ranges of mobile phones from Sony Ericsson. The Walkman branding came back in a big way at the beginning of 2006 with the release of a range of Walkman branded Sony Ericsson Phones (http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/sonyericssonphones.html ). Recognising the movement towards MP3 technology within the mobile phone market, Sony wasted no time in reeling out the old star brand and stamping it over its' range of phones to herald in the new era of music player capability within mobile handsets.

The Walkman range of phones (or W range) is squarely aimed at music lovers and most of the handsets include a 512 MB memory card to support the handsets MP3 capabilities. The existing range of phones are best sellers and needless to say that an update range of Walkman branded phones is in the pipeline (http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=ph1&zone=ph ). Second time around and in a different marketplace and in a completely different landscape as far as music consumption and storage is concerned, the Walkman is a star again.

The mobile phone industry is a perfect fit for Walkman and Sony recognises this. The nature of the Walkman, portable, fashionable, ubiquitous the only regret for Sony might be that MP3 technology did not emerge 5 years before it eventually did. If that were the case, the Sony Ericsson might be looking at an even larger slice of the handset manufacturer than it does now.