Craig,
I agree with you. Television may not be in the cards because of cost, but certainly targeted magazine ads, and POS (point of sale) materials would help sales. SanDisk has never been a good marketing company, IMHO. And the opportunity is there, the only good marketing company they compete with is Sony (one of the best).
I've been thinking that Eli may not be the perfect manager for a consumer products company. You have to give him a ton of credit for inventing the category, and bringing it to the point where it is close to becoming a standard. But I sometimes wonder if he has sold or traded the SanDisk IP, at the expense of the stockholders, primarily to promote the standard he invented. It could be that his motivation is not to build a strong independent company, but to entrench his invention in the marketplace.
It's a disappointment. All the textbooks say the standard inventor, and the first to market, should have a huge advantage.
Still holding, and thinking that things will get better in the 3rd and 4th quarters.
John |
