Obama could learn a few lessons in marketing from the evil capitalists.
Sony seems to have found the recipe for selling products. Their rollout of the PlayStation 4 (and all the previous PlayStations) has been practically flawless. In light of the Obamacare rollout debacle and my expertise as a management consultant, I figured I could give America’s president a lesson in capitalism.
Here’s a short list of six things Obama could learn from the Sony PlayStation 4 debut:
1. Have a good product
It should go without saying, but step one to capitalist success is to have a product that people actually want. Apparently people want Playstations. They also want iPhones and they like using Travelocity and Amazon, all things Obama has mentioned in his speeches in comparison to Obamacare. Unlike Obamacare, when ordering from these organizations, you get what you pay for.
No matter how much Obama tries to associate Obamacare with highly sought-after products, it remains a pig on ice. High costs, higher deductibles and co-pays make Obamacare the black sheep, pun intended, of universal healthcare.
Out of the 308 million Americans, Obamacare debuted with a whopping 100 thousand enrollees in six weeks. The administration admits they were expecting five times that amount.
Let’s compare ObamaCare’s coming out to the iPhone, as reported in the Guardian.
The new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5 made Apple the top smartphone seller in the U.S. in September, despite only being on sale for 10 days of the month.
New data from Counterpoint Research provided exclusively to the Guardian shows that Apple sold 4.8m phones there in September, jumping to a 38 percent share of the entire U.S. smartphone market for the month. The figures include sales of the new iPhone 5S and 5C, which went on sale on September 20th.
Too bad Obamacare could not be marketed with a free iPhone.
Obamacare compares just as dismally to other consumer products, and people are not forced to buy them. The lesson here is the majority of the people did NOT want ObamaCare. 85 percent of the population were insured. Obama unilaterally deemed these existing policies “junk insurance” plans, apparently based on his extensive knowledge of sports.
2. Know your market
It’s good to know your market when you launch a product. Sony had an embedded market, but they didn’t presume they would necessarily maintain their market share.
Sony test-marketed their PlayStation 4, and correctly anticipated the reaction, reported CNN.
Shoppers lined up outside many stores across the country for a special midnight debut of the system, hoping to grab up one of the limited supply. Analysts expect the demand for the system to outstrip supply through Christmas. Sony’s forecast is that it will sell 5 million of the PlayStation 4s by the end of March.
Obamacare had no market. The plan was to pilfer the existing market in the style of a drug dealer taking over a new territory — by force. Obama and his minions got the polling data, which were lethargic to say the least. They disregarded reality, and launched a product whose only hope of survival was to mandate that people buy it.
Obama believed what he wanted to believe – the hype – about his legacy-ensuring, budget-busting namesake legislation. He was delusional to believe that people would line up for it. But delusion is rampant within the left, and is generally served with a meal of crow.
Not only did people not line up for Obamacare from the comfort of their computers, but Obama was unprepared for what might happen if his $678 million was not enough to build a working website and people might actually have to get off their lazy EBT-fed, American taxpayer-funded, sofa-sitting asses and visit an Obama Outlet.
3. Have a good distribution plan.
Step one of having a good distribution plan is to have a working website. This is the information age. The candidate-turned-president who planted messages inside of video games during the election cycle can’t get a website operational in three years!
I dare Team Reckless to visit Sony’s website and try to bring it down with product orders. Sony is more than prepared to deal with a run on orders or those dastardly requests for more information.
The Obamacare website can’t take orders or even back-orders — it can barely dispense information — breaking rule number one of capitalism: Be able to sell your product.
Step two of having a good distribution plan is to work with distributors to make sure you have a coordinated sales roll-out.
Sony announced their roll-out strategy to the public and there were lines of people at various outlets waiting for the PlayStation 4. Those lines are how capitalists define success.
Contrast this with ObamaCare.
Despite knowing that nobody wanted Obamacare, Obama launched. The Republicans tried to get him to delay the launch or cancel it altogether, but he would have none of that.
Some parties to the website roll-out warned of impending doom, but Obama’s team disregarded their foreboding. Where was Obama, the leader of the free world, who one would think would be anxiously managing the birth of his new baby? He was watching CNN to get an update on whether the baby had all its fingers and toes.
4. Avoid a recall.
The first step to avoiding a recall take us back to the first point: have a good product. You don’t want somebody kicking the tires and then immediately returning something. Put another way, the product should last at least through the warranty period.
You can bet that Sony has tested their website, their distribution channel, the product, and they are confident that they will not be getting many of their PlayStation 4s back.
Obamacare on the other hand had an instant recall.
If Sony’s PlayStation launch were like the Obamacare rollout, everybody would suddenly start losing their PlayStation 3 because Sony paid thieves to steal them. Imagine if Sony rolled out their new PlayStation and 5 million people suddenly complained that they had lost their old PlayStation 3, and they must purchase the new PlayStation 4, and it would cost three times as much? Oh, and it doesn’t work.
To put it in perspective:
Product sold 100 thousand
Product recalled 5 MILLION
That scenario would create pandemonium, and Kazuo Hirai, the president and CEO of Sony would be the new janitor at Fukushima.
5. Have a good CEO
Liberals love Barack Obama. But he was wholly unprepared to be president or “anydent.” That is not the case for Sony’s CEO. Prior to becoming president and CEO of Sony, Kazuo Hirai worked in just about all the areas of the Sony corporation.
Here are just the last 4 years of Hirai’s resume.
On April 1, 2009, Sony’s electronics and game businesses were merged and reconfigured into two major groups: the Consumer Products and Devices Group (CPDG) and the Networked Products and Services Group (NPSG). Hirai was appointed as Corporate Executive Officer and Executive Vice President of Sony Corporation, concurrently serving as president of the NPSG.
He has overseen all development, production and marketing activities at the NPSG, comprising Sony’s game (i.e. SCEI & Sony Online Entertainment), personal computer (VAIO), mobile devices (including Walkman and Xperia) and network service (Sony Entertainment Network, including online distributions of music, video, games, eBooks, etc.) businesses and new business incubation projects.
Hirai is said to have played a fundamental role in the success of the PlayStation brand, introducing gaming to a much larger and more diverse audience.
On April 1, 2011, Sony’s consumer electronics, game, and networked service businesses were reorganized into one group, named the Consumer Products and Services Group. Hirai was promoted to Representative Corporate Executive Officer and Executive Deputy President of Sony Corporation, where he oversaw it.
Hirai was speculated to become the successor to Howard Stringer, the current sitting president and CEO of Sony Corporation, who was then expected to step down in 2013, however on February 1, 2012, Sony announced that Hirai has been appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1, 2012, because his performance was so stellar.
Barack Obama’s resume:
Community organizer turned mediocre congressman turned mediocre junior senator, who admitted he was not prepared to be president, who later proved it by becoming president. Crowning accomplishment: Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the passage of ObamaDud.
That reads like an obituary. Because it is! This what happens when you try to force people to buy something people don’t want.
6. You can’t force people to buy your product.
The thing that makes the PlayStation great is competition. With the Wii, X-Box, and other platforms present and future, Sony continues to innovate.
Obama believes himself to be a benevolent dictator. He knows what’s best for people, so Obamacare is mandatory. There is only one outcome for this, and it’s vodka and toilet paper lines.
Young people know that Obamacare is a trap.
Let’s see, pay $200 a month for something I likely won’t use, or pay the $95 fine if I do happen to use it at some point? I’ll take Door #2.
ObamaYouth will be responsible to pay for the old folks, and they know this. But ObamaYouths are nothing if not irresponsible. ObamaYouths are the most self-indulgent kids on the planet, just waiting for their chance to get their turn at government assistance. This doesn’t bode well for the solvency of his healthcare reform.
Unfortunately for Obama, Obamacare’s most needed patrons are texting on their $500 iPhones about where the shortest line to get a $400 PlayStation 4 is, and they are not thinking about getting insurance.
Kevin Jackson is a best-selling author and syndicated radio host.
Copyright 2013 Kevin Jackson – The Black Sphere, LLC – All Rights Reserved
