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Blog: Hardware Toshiba HD DVD Super Bowl Ad More Miss Than Hit
Marcus Yam (Blog) - February 6, 2008 2:08 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 17 comment(s) - last by melgross.. on Feb 12 at 4:07 PM
Super Bowl a missed opportunity for HD DVD

Super Bowl commercials are now an event almost completely separate from football. While sports addicts see the game as the main attraction, advertisers and marketers see the game as just an interruption for the most expensive commercial spots of the year.

I’m sure that entire marketing teams – particularly those behind beer commercials – prep for the Super Bowl just like any other athlete. And that’s exactly what it was a little disappointing to see what Toshiba did with its 30-second spot to promote HD DVD.

Days before the game, tech news sites ran stories about Toshiba’s purchase of a commercial spot during the Super Bowl. Some may call Toshiba’s purchase of Super Bowl ad time as an act of desperation to help make up for the loss of Warner Bros. Mind you, Toshiba purchased an ad last year, when things were still mostly in HD DVD’s favor.

Toshiba’s decision to purchase another ad spot was likely made before Warner Bros. announced that it would go Blu-ray Disc exclusive, but surely the intent to promote HD DVD became much more important after CES. Click here to view the commercial spot.

Overall, the Toshiba HD DVD ad was a disappointment for those looking for something revelatory in the ongoing high-definition format war. The commercial didn’t even air nationwide, but only in select markets. To be fair, it’s very difficult to advertise the concept of high-definition to viewers who are still most likely watching the game on a standard definition television.

HD DVD’s best advantage over Blu-ray Disc right now is its lower price – a fact that Toshiba should know, but didn’t push hard enough during its Super Bowl ad. Only at the end of the ad did the $149 price show up. Those mildly interested in jumping on the HD DVD bandwagon won’t be swayed by anything presented during the commercial up until the last five seconds of it.

It’s not that HD DVD would be an instant victor in the war had it made a more compelling commercial, but if you’re going to spend millions on an advertising opportunity, well, you need to make it a hit.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Good thing this is a "blog" posting...
By iFX on 2/6/2008 8:39:08 AM , Rating: 2
Because it's 100% opinion. Lets see some facts confirming the commercial had a negative impact on sales.




By monitorjbl on 2/6/2008 8:54:53 AM , Rating: 3
I don't think he said anything about sales being hurt, just that the commercial wasn't as good as it should have been, given the number of studios and people backing Blu-ray at the moment.

Besides, if you read the article, you may notice that he is discussing how "good" the advertisement was. I don't see how that could possibly be anything but opinion.


wrong
By smitty3268 on 2/6/2008 11:57:28 AM , Rating: 2
Focusing on the price would have been absolutely the wrong tactic. Sure, it's much cheaper than Blu-Ray, but most people are accustomed to DVD players less than $50 bucks and wouldn't find this price cheap at all. You'd have to compare it to BR to make the cheapness point, and then you'd have to explain what BR was in the 1st place which you certainly don't want to do that in a HD-DVD ad.

Although you're right that they spent an awful lot of money on a rather disappointing ad.




HD-DVD is dead
By IntelGirl on 2/6/08, Rating: -1
RE: HD-DVD is dead
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 2/6/2008 8:36:57 AM , Rating: 3
I've been hearing HD-DVD is dead for weeks now, but yet I still see new releases on the format, and players still selling. It's not dead until either of those stop.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By theflux on 2/6/2008 11:16:56 AM , Rating: 2
If the metric for life is new releases and players sold, then UMD is by far more alive than HD DVD.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 2/6/2008 12:45:53 PM , Rating: 2
Your right. UMD is still very much alive and kicking.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By Samus on 2/9/2008 3:33:14 AM , Rating: 2
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic MK. I haven't seen a new UMD release in quite a while ;)


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By Wagnbat on 2/7/2008 1:28:44 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I've been hearing HD-DVD is dead for weeks now, but yet I still see new releases on the format, and players still selling. It's not dead until either of those stop.


Amazon had the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player on sale in their 'one deal per day, gold-box' offer. I checked it about 3 hours after it went live (midnight pacific?) and it was sold out. Nothing in the gold box usually sells out that fast. If it was Woot.com, that would obviously be a different story.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By TomZ on 2/6/08, Rating: 0
RE: HD-DVD is dead
By killerroach on 2/6/2008 10:09:19 AM , Rating: 3
a format that captures 1/3 of a potentially very large market would be considered very successful.

Just the potential isn't really the issue... it's the reality of the situation. The market for HD optical discs at present is very small, and HD-DVD's slice of that is almost non-existent anymore. After all, it hasn't had a 1/3 market share since, oh, Black Friday... the more recent figures don't even show it to be a competitive race anymore.

I can understand pulling for a format that you probably, going by your statements, probably own (as I am by speaking about Blu-Ray), but the "format war" right now is about the equivalent of a kid poking a tiger with a stick. It's not much of a war, no damage is presently being done, but the smaller entity is in peril nevertheless.

I am sure Toshiba will do all they can to try to remain competitive as long as possible, but I don't see it happening long-term with limited studio support and even more limited releases. I don't think the ad would have really turned the tide one way or the other, but how they went about it may have been a tough sell and a significant opportunity missed.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By TomZ on 2/6/2008 11:14:41 AM , Rating: 1
For the record, I don't own either HD-DVD or BD players. I have literally no stake in the outcome.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By BMFPitt on 2/6/2008 11:09:14 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
HD-DVD is only "dead" in the minds of Sony/BD fan-boys (and -girls). :o)
I'm an HD-DVD owner and I've declared it dead. That won't stop me from buying any available titles that I would have anyway.

Blu-Ray won against a slightly superior and much lower-priced format simply because HD-DVD was incredibly inept at getting the message into the minds of consumers. The mass market - people who should have won it for HD-DVD - were confused, and all they knew was that you can watch movies in HD with some sort of blue player (not that the PS3 hurt their efforts to get a foot in the door of many homes.)


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By Chaser on 2/6/2008 2:47:33 PM , Rating: 3
Sure. It's on life support. What Warner and others are trying to do is put an end to the "war" early for the benefit of most consumers -outside for the DT HD DVD faithful in denial here.

Blue Ray will eventually be a household name as the next removeable media standard for higher def. I don't have some personal axe to grind against Sony or any other agenda beyond prefering the specs of one brand over another. Wouldn't have mattered to me if it had been Blue/High or whatever.

Bury the horse please, let's move on.

And "purple for the win"? Don't make me laugh. Dual format players are expensive. But I guess now that HD DVD is in a coma price doesn't matter. Go figure.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By Sazar on 2/6/2008 6:27:04 PM , Rating: 2
What are they trying to do?

Sony has paid huge sums of money to studios to get them to adopt their standard.

http://gizmodo.com/344680/the-real-reason-warner-w...

There are links in that little tidbit to actual articles.

Toshiba apparently didn't want to shell out as much money as Sony to buy loyalty.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By melgross on 2/12/2008 4:07:41 PM , Rating: 2
That's BS. And we do know that Toshiba paid Paramount $150 million to move over. They distribute Dreamworks as well. Gizmodo is simply not reliable. They only print rumors of this kind.

It's interesting that these supposed payments have not been admitted to, but that the one to Paramount was broadcast.

The fact is that if it were true, accounting rules would require it to be on their books.

As it isn't, we can discount it as FUD.


RE: HD-DVD is dead
By BMFPitt on 2/6/2008 11:00:37 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
They didn't care to make it catchy they only wanted people to go buy the last of the HD-DVD players for that price.
Yeah, as we all know the best way to clear out leftover inventory is to spend $2.5M on a commercial.


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