The second keynote session on Tuesday was led by Mike Fasulo, CMO of Sony Electronics. Mike asked the audience, "How many of you have owned a Sony product?" Just about every hand went up in the room. Mike jokingly thanked the audience of highly-distinguished customers.

Mike feels that the successful brands of the 21st century will be those that can execute a truly customer-centric approach.

What keeps Mike up at night? Increased competition, widespread commoditization, price erosion. However, if we're only thinking of the customer do any of those matter?

When Sony launched the Bravia the did a tremendous amount of research to gain customer insights. What did they learn? The target audience was women. Women were not usually associated with electronics. However, their research showed that 55% of all consumer electronics purchases were made by women. Women influence 83% of all electronics purchases in the U.S.

Sony launched the product as the world's first television for men and women. The focus was on picture quality and style/design. Both of these items were equally important to men and women.

How do customers view Sony? Customers view Sony as a single brand. They don't see Sony as their individual units, i.e. Sony Pictures, Sony BMC, Sony Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment, etc. But that's how Sony is organized internally. That's not how products come to market. The internal and external views don't match. The problem is, how can each of these units leverage the overall Sony brand?

In the imaging world, they have three brands, Alpha, Cyber-Shot and Handycam. However from the consumer perspective it's just imaging.

How do they align customer service, product marketing, corporate communications, event, sales and finance to serve a single customer across various product lines and divisions?

Looking at a recent campaign they launched, you see two different product lines sharing a theme. The focus is on the use of the product, not the aspects of the product, i.e. zoom, megapixels, etc.

Now the problem becomes continuity. Carrying those commons themes across all mediums. One thing Sony is doing is syndicated major campaign elements to vendors and point-of-presence opportunities.

Another customer-centric effort is the Sony stores. The purpose of Sony stores is not to sell product, it's to engage the consumer with Sony. Let customers shop where they are comfortable.

(Disclosure: Sony Computer Entertainment America/SCEA is a client)