Creative Technology Brand Critique

Corporate History:

Creative Technology was established in Singapore on 1 July, 1981 and was started by Mr. Sim Wong Hoo who is now its Chairman and Chief Executive. The organisation set foot in Singapore as a computer repair shop where Sim created an add-on memory chip for Apple Inc. Exploring his potentials, he then started developing personalised computers adapted in Chinese (Miles, 2005). According to their corporate profile in its website, today Creative Technology is widely recognised as an innovative and interactive digital media entertainer throughout the world.
The corporate expanded from a simple repair shop to a large Multi-National Corporation. Similarly, the product range has widened from memory chips, to speakers to MP3 players.
Creative Technology now has spread its branches throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Corporate Identity:

Creative Technology’s visual approach displays simplicity. Their logo is easy to read as the word “creative” is displayed in capital letters with some minor adjustments. Furthermore, the logo is also easy to remember as it has created its uniqueness in the eyes of a consumer. However, the organisation does not stress on the official colours used in their logo. As registered their logo comprises the colours blue and orange, yet the logo on their products, brochures and website may contain different colours. This way when it comes to colour identity, Creative Technology does not appear to be consistent.
For a case study, we can take DBS Singapore. Every advertisement, publication or approach DBS takes towards its target audience is with consistency. As an audience I would always expect DBS to use the colour red in its display. As a consumer, I connect the colour red to very few organisations such as DBS, McDonalds or OCBC.
The results of a survey conducted amongst 30 tech-savvy Singaporeans displayed that none of the 30 people knew what corporate colours represented Creative Technology. This was surprising and also a disappointment for a worldwide leading corporation in the digital entertainment market. This research tells us that either Creative technology does not use colours to project its corporate identity or the corporate colours are not projected appropriately to the target audience.
Therefore, apart from the logo, colour also has a place in representing corporate identity. Unfortunately, this is missing for Creative Technology.

Creative Technology Core Values:

According to Creative Technology’s website, the corporate revolves around the following core values namely playfulness, curiousness, customisation and innovation. Most of the products they launch come in more than one colour which enables consumers to select the product according to their own customisation.
In addition, they always try to take a step ahead from other branded products launched. For instance, in the case of the Ipod, the mp3 player possesses features that enable the consumer to listen to music, play a few games, check the time and date. On the other hand, Creative Zen mp3 player provides all the functions as the Ipod as well as has radio and sound recording features too. This way they display their value of being innovative.
When it comes to curiosity, the organisation claims to have walked in its founder’s footsteps. As stated in Creative’s website, Sim Wong Hoo, is believed to have a sense of curiosity when it comes to technology. Similarly, the organisation likes to ask questions such as “why”, “how “, “when” and “where” to information related to technology. This tells us that the organisation is familiar with each and every product launched and the reasons for it to be designed in the respected way. However, this value of Creative Technology is not widely marketed. Until and unless one searches for its core values, it is not obvious that Creative Technology believes in being curious to find out everything about technology.
Last but not least, Creative Technology believes to have a playful character. This is why most products manufactured by the organisation caters to digital entertainment that promotes play, for example mp3 players, cameras and speakers. They also seem to be sinking more and more into the roots of music.

Target Audience:

The organisation has two defined target audience. As stated in their corporate website, one of the audiences Creative Technology targets is tech-savvy people who are keen in possessing the most updated technology which comprises valuable features. The second target audience are those people who just simply enjoy entertainment.

Brand & Product Positioning:

Creative Technology excels when it comes to brand awareness. Every Singaporean who has the slightest knowledge on technology would have heard about the brand Creative. Any new product launched by creative captures interest of huge audience solely because they are familiar with the success of the brand and can relate to it.
The organisation’s brand has been positioned as one of the known, leading brands in the digital entertainment market worldwide. However, according to my survey, 80% of the surveyors would not place Creative as one of their top 3 brand choices when it comes to digital entertainment technology.
Due to the decline in net sales and expansion of one of his main competitor, Apple Inc, people will consider buying a higher credited product such as Apple’s until or unless Creative Technology once again comes up with a new product that beats the features of the rest.
The positioning was estimated after conducting a survey of 30 people, from various age groups and occupations. The only thing common about the surveyors was that they all have a fine liking for digital entertainment technology. From the diagram above, it can be seen that Apple, Samsung and Sony have been given higher product preference ranking in comparison to Creative products.
I would say, the brand positioning of Creative in the digital technology market is not very good and needs to boost up to remain competitive.
Creative’s products include a wide range as mentioned before, and after contacting a number of digital suppliers I also found out that their product distribution is fairly good in the Singapore market. On the other hand, Creative has been working to improve its marketing and distributing strategy across the world as well, for instance it has joint hands with ModusLink Global Solutions ™ Inc, a leader in supply chain business process management to support its customers across America (Winberg, 2008).
Creative appears to be promising a better product positioning in the coming years. The potential strength of this brand is visible when it comes to product positioning and servicing, however, right now the product positioning is lower than expectations.

Product Range:

Creative Technology caters to a huge product range in different categories of technology. The following list shows how diverse the company is and the variety of products it provides to their customers.
The diagram above shows us that Creative technology has spread it services to various digital sectors. It focuses on computer based products as well as digital entertainment. A brand holding so many products indicate that it has ventured into a huge market providing more than one service to its customers. Hence, the brand displays itself as being strong and huge in the digital market. This is a positive sign.
On the other hand, surveys show that when it comes to purchasing a digital product, majority of the customers in Singapore would prefer products of Sony and Apple rather than of Creative be it headphones, mp3 players or cameras.

Net Sales Trend:

When it comes to net sales, the organisation’s net sales declined 19.5% as compared to last year. In 2007, Creative Technology recorded revenues of US$914.9 million (Datamonitor Computerwire, 2007) while in 2008 the net sale was US$736.8 million (Creative website). On the other hand, its core competitor Apple Inc is recording its revenue in billions, credit going to the launch of the new iphone and software services. In December 2007, Apple’s net sale is currently reported to be US$9.6 billion where the company alone sold more than 22 million ipods (Paxton, 2008).
This tells us that the brand of Creative Technology has a long way to go before it reaches anywhere near Apple, which is every minute working effectively to grow its product range and has added mobile phones to its range.
When stakeholders study the disclosed net sales of Creative Technology and find that their net sales is declining in revenue, they will hesitate in buying the company’s share or if they possess any current shares they will think of selling it. This is because the declined net sales will project that the company may not be marketing their products properly, is not coming up with new products to stay competitive in the market, is not working on strategies to drive their sales or other brands are performing better than Creative Technology.
Now this will in return further affect the company. When stakeholders will not invest in Creative’s shares, the company will have less investors which means the market value will decline. Moreover, when the market value declines, it will be harder for them to work on improving their brand position and staying competitive. This is will again have a poorer impression on the stakeholders and the cycle will go on again.

Recommendation:

There are many ways that Creative Technology can increase its brand equity. In my opinion the best way to increase brand equity would be by developing new products that would capture the interest of their target audience such as what Apple Inc did by introducing the ipod when its organisation was at its worse (Burrows, 2006).
This way sales will increase, stabilising the company’s financial records which will in return be of interest to stakeholders.
In addition, Creative Technology can also work on marketing its current net worth. If the company is able to project its market value to potential stakeholders there will be more people willing to venture in the company. Lastly, I would suggest Creative Technology should keep a look out for the next step of their competitors. If the company can move in the same pace as its competitors, it will show that company is competitive and as promising as any of its competitors. This will gain the trust of stakeholders who will in return invest in the brand equity.
My research through surveys indicated that currently Creative Technology’s products are seen to be cheap hence a valuable buy. Most surveyors that possessed Creative Technology products, bought it because the product was cheap. I would say Creative has gone beyond the line of limit and has been overly focusing on sales drive through promotions to improve brand equity. The organisation did not realise that too many promotions are harmful for a brand, and it decreases brand value as well as equity. I do not say that Creative Technology should completely stop giving promotions. Yet, it should focus on only promoting products that are not widely known in the market instead of famous products such as Creative ZEN.

Good features of Creative Technology:

In a summary, yet mentioned above, the good features of Creative technology will be the wide and diverse product range the brand caters to. Another good feature would be coming out of Singapore and venturing worldwide providing its services to various parts of the world. In addition, Creative technology’s products always try to possess more features than their competitor’s product. In simple words, they try always going one step ahead in product features.
Furthermore, Creative Technology makes digital entertainment affordable. Those looking for mp3 players, cameras etc do not need to spend much and still possess a technology that can fulfil all their requirements. This way it meets one of its target audience that are just looking for modes of digital entertainment for the sake of enjoying.

Bad features of Creative Technology:

One of the bad features Creative Technology has is that it tries to provide more product features than its competitors, yet it does not focus on marketing their product without involving sales promotions and labelling its product as cheap in the market. It has also stopped coming out with new products and is just working on improving their old product. By this I mean, Creative Technology should learn from major brands like Sony, Apple and Samsung who have launched beyond mp3 players and cameras to phones and new software development and creations.
Due to numerous sales promotions, the company has projected it brand as promising valuable yet very cheap products. It did not realise that when products are labelled cheap, their brand value and production quality are at stake. This why customers that buy creative technology products are those who are not willing to spend a lot on technology while customers that do not buy creative products are those who consider the brand as cheap, low quality and nothing to be very proud of. In other words, possessing an ipod will make them feel proud and richer in comparison of possessing a Creative ZEN.

Internal Relations:

Creative Technology takes good care of its employees. According to Wynne Leong, Creative’s Public Relations Officer, the company provides them with good bonus every year, gives employees a certain amount of company shares as well as engages employees in activities that keeps them active and cheerful. This is not all. The organisation also provides counselling to employees and their family member.
However, the company does not advertise many of the benefits it provides to its employees. I would say this is a bad move as jobseekers would not know how it would feel to be working with Creative Technology. This way Creative Technology might lose some potentially extremely talented jobseekers.
My survey on employee perception indicated that none of the surveyors knew what benefits they would get by working with Creative. Most of them wouldn’t mind working for Creative, as long as they get a stable job and can earn a living. There were surveyors who would only work for Creative Technology, if the organisation gave them exceptional offers. I also realise that brand positioning can play an important role in gaining employees for an organisation. 7% of the surveyors would never want to work for Creative Technology as they do not have a good brand image of the company and they feel that their work experience in the company would not be properly recognised elsewhere.
I would suggest Creative Technology be more transparent with their internal relations as well as external relations similar to how Google has been. Many people all around the world have a certain idea on how Google operates and their working habits and regulations. Transparency would make it make clear that Creative is all rounder company that works on taking care of its customers as well as its employees.

Creative Promises:

In the past few years Creative Technology has become one of the leading digital entertainment providers. It has ventured out of its homeland, Singapore, to other countries worldwide and is competing against one of the biggest players in the world Apple Inc. The net value as well as market value of Creative was once even more than Apple Inc. The question arises, is Creative Technology fulfilling the promise its brand makes to consumers?
Being one of the leaders in digital entertainment market, there is high expectations from the brand in all aspects be it customer service, product features, market value or marketing concepts. However, research through surveys indicates that there is nothing unique about Creative Technology that other digital entertainment leaders do not possess. 90% of the surveyors rate the company’s customer service as average, 40% have never been to Creative’s corporate website and 60% rate Creative’s marketing concept as poor.
I would not say that the brand is marking up to its expectations and thus, is not fulfilling promises its brand makes to consumers. Being the owner of many business awards locally and internationally, Creative Technology can do more than it has been doing. If Apple Inc, can re-energize and escape from drowning in the pit of bankruptcy and become a major, currently unbeatable brand, there are expectations that Creative Technology can perform better than what it has been doing lately.

Media Reports:

When it comes to favourability, media reports are more in favour or interested in where Apple Inc or Sony are heading. This does not mean that Creative Technology is not covered. Media reports currently project Creative Technology as one of the leading provider of digital entertainment technology yet are waiting for the company to come up with new products or new strategies that would challenge the digital entertainment market.
There have been not much unfavourable reports, if not none, for Creative Technology. I would say the media is somewhat neutral when it comes to Creative Technology and have not said anything unpleasant about the company.