Sales Promotion and Personal Selling.

Like many other companies Sony uses sales promotion to increase the effectiveness of its promotional efforts.  Sales promotion offers consumers an incentive to buy, either by lowering price or adding value. Sony uses both consumer sales promotion  for consumer market and trade sales promotion for the members of marketing channel. For example, one of the tools for consumer sales promotion is online sales promotion. From December 30th 2010 to January 5th Sony had promotion which offered 55 Bravia  XBR8 3D TV for $4999 (original price $5499)  plus free shipping.
Sony also involved in trade sales promotion. For instance, Sony uses trade allowances- price reduction offered by manufacturers to intermediaries. One of Sony's retailers BestBuy receives special discount for running its own promotion of Sony products. Another Sony's sales promotion tools is training. When i visited BestBuy i noticed that the salesman was well trained how to demonstrate new features of the latest TV models.

Advertizing and Public Relations.

Sony is a popular and trusted brand in about 150 countries around the world so when it comes to advertising Sony uses product advertising, to be specific, pioneering advertising- to stimulate primary demand for a new product or product category.  Sony have earned the trust of a lot of customers throughout the world so the company doesnt  need to strive to enhance its image by using institutional advertising. When the company came up with Bravia 3D TV,  Sony started advertising the product through the major advertising media- television, internet, magazines, newspapers and outdoors media. For example,  in one of the Bravia 3D TV commercials Bravia  TV and 3D glasses takes a family to a different 3D world to have a new entertainment experience.

Retailing.

Sony is a leading manufacture of electronic technology. Last week i  visited one of the Sony's retailers Best Buy located on 86street and Lexington ave. Its a department store that carries a wide variety of electronic products. You can see that the level of service is moderately high as soon as you walk in to the store. I observed few salesmen working with customers and i saw that they delivered an excellent customer service that helped costumers to make right choices.  All the workers are properly trained on the products, so they can answer your questions, provide assistance in setting up your products and treat you with respect and professionalism. Then i decided to experience it myself. I came to one salesman named Alex and asked for help. i said i was interested in Sony Bravia 3D TVs. He asked me few questions about my preferences to help find a right product for me. While talking to him, i noticed that he stays informed about new technologies what helps costumers be on the "cutting age".After he explained me everything he let me try to watch a video on the Bravia 3D TV. At the end he thanked me for visiting the store and gave me a small brochure about the product that i was interested in, so i can learn more about it at home.
Best buy is also online retailer. You can buy  products from the website BestBuy.com.
from my personal experience i can conclude that  Soy works with retailers who provide customer care even before you make a purchase whether in store or online.

Consumer Decision Making.

When buying new products, especially expensive, consumers follow the consumer decision-making process which consists of  5 steps. The first one is need recognition which occurs when consumer is exposed to either internal or external stimulus. For example, you want to buy a TV and you see a commercial of Sony 3D TV, the next thing you want to go to the store and have this new viewing yourself. After you recognize what you need or want, you go to the next step information search. For example,  you already had a good experience with Sony products, you saw a commercial about that product on TV, read about it in a magazine or heard about it from your friends or family.  Once you get the information you move to the next step evaluation of alternatives. You begin narrowing the number of choices by either using cuttoffs or picking up a product attribute and exclude all products that dont have that attribute. For example, you need to buy a TV, at least 40 inch, you want it to have 3D, HD, and access to internet. Next step is a purchase. Ultimately you have to decide whether to buy or not to buy, specifically, when, what, where to buy and how to pay. Nowadays, there are so many ways to purchase a product, you can go to of of the electronic retailer stores and buy the TV or you can order it from online store. Same way, you can pay for you purchase right away or buy it on credit. The last step is postpurchase behavior which influenced by certain expectations. For example, people have high expectations regarding performance of Sony 3D TV which are satisfied because Sony's main goal is to satisfy costumers by making high quality products. Sometimes people tend to feel cognitive dissonance. in that case,Sony provides warranty for its products,product replacement plans or product insurance to help reduce dissonance.