When you claim that your products come have certain characteristics, do you wait for the occasion to arise when such characteristics are put to the test, or do you demonstrate them right away? Obviously, Sony opted for the latter with its waterproof MP3 player.
Sony seems to have a thing lately for waterproof gadgets. A bit over an year ago, it showcased the Xperia Z at CES 2013, and decided to demonstrate its waterproof capabilities by immersing it in water for brief periods of time. Up until then, waterproof smartphones had a very rugged design and weren’t particularly pocket-friendly. Not to mention that business partners would have look away if someone put a rugged phone on the table at a meeting. Now, Sony took a different approach with this waterproof MP3 player.
The Japanese company hired ad agency DraftFCB to come up with a revolutionary product packaging. What they came up with is called the Bottled Walkman, and the name should be pretty self-explanatory. Sony realized that we might get in contact with water either by accident or intentionally, while doing sports, so a waterproof Walkman makes more sense now than ever.
The Bottled Walkman is delivered in a bottle of water, a simple way of showing that water doesn’t affect the hardware of this portable music player.
DraftFCB figured out not only how the Bottled Walkman should be packaged, but also where it should be sold. Given the waterproof design, the first choice in terms of target audience was represented by swimmers. Sony placed vending machines that sell its new product at pools and gyms, thus making the purchase of a waterproof MP3 player as easy as the one of a bottle of water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USJSOPPZoKI
Thanks to Sony, we no longer have to look for bags of rice whenever our gadgets get in contact with water. I hope that other manufacturers come to realize that such accidents happen and we would much prefer wiping our smartphones and MP3 players dry rather than buying others.
Just a piece of advice for anyone willing to buy Sony’s waterproof MP3 player from a vending machine: it’s probably best not to drink the water from the bottle containing this little gadget.
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