Creative Labs, which made its fortune in the latter part of the last century making the popular SoundBlaster series of computer speakers and cards, is today one of the leading purveyors of digital portable music players, and is known for its popular Nomad and Muvo lines, to name but two.
Yet while they are a “leader” in the space, meaning they are among the top companies vying for attention and customers, they are a very, very distant second to Apple’s iPod line, the latter of which commands a market share in the U.S. that hovers above the 70%-80% range while Creative Labs’s is around 11%, the rest being shared by all the flash and other digital players.
Apple is among the few businesses that have a veritable cult following, with ultra cool products and a recently revived and formidable brand that sends shivers to its competitors’ spines.
Creative’s products work, but are obvious results of engineers designing and working on the product that just oozes “commonplace,” “trite,” “blasé,” “banal,” and everything ordinary put together.
Now Creative last year announced over a hundred million dollar marketing spree to fight the iPod. All for good it will do on the marketing and awareness front. But in the end, it left the company awash in red ink, and still remained a very distant second, paling yet again in the marketplace being no better than its past efforts to thwart Apple’s dominance.
That’s because the issue isn’t the technical specifications of the product, or even a marketing budget, but its cool factor, its design, and its buzz. The three things where Apple shines, and Creative just doesn’t thus far.
No matter how much money you throw at a losing proposition, it still loses. And to that end, it isn’t about making the product work better, but making a product go reach the radar screen of consumers who have already made up their mind that the iPod works, isn’t that expensive compared to its competitors, and is so cool it might cure cancer and get you the chicks. (And oh, it also plays music.)
What Creative should do is keep the specs but literally go back to the drawing board and hire a good industrial designer, then get its buzz machine in order. Beauty may be skin-deep, but in a world where products work almost exactly the same way (It plays music! It plays video!), price, status and looks are what counts.
As it stands right now, it isn’t an issue about how my Creative Zen is better than the iPod, but how my iPod is bigger than your iPod.
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