A New Branding Strategy
For nearly 10 years, Creative always branded their products with the Creative Labs name. After a long struggle to regain the creative.com domain name, and to tie in with the company's new Internet strategy, Creative will be using the CREATIVE.com branding on all Creative products from now on.
You now own a Creative.com
sound card.
The first products to carry this new branding strategy will of course be the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum and the 3D Blaster GeForce.
You'll see more web sites focusing on Creative products, but providing not only specifications and drivers for the products, but more like a portal providing useful links to value-added content. For example, the nomadworld.com site not only focuses on the Nomad player, but also provides downloadable content for the Nomad, enhancing the value of the product.
With this brand new strategy, Creative now bills itself as the User Experience Company. Not just a manufacturer of hardware and multimedia products.
PDE Internet Solutions
In early 1999, Creative also introduced the Personal Digital Entertainment (PDE) strategy to make PCs more enjoyable for users.
Many PDE Internet Devices are planned. These products rely on the Internet to provide functionality, but can also be detached and used away from the PC. The first product was the Nomad, and the Nomad II was just announced.
Another interesting product on display was the Webcam Go. This device functions as a normal webcam when connected to the PC via the USB port, but can also be detached to snap pictures like a digital camera! When the Webcam Go is connected back to the PC, the pictures can be downloaded into the hard drive for e-mailing or archiving.
Webcam Go
Another class of products in the PDE strategy are the PDE Internet Applications like the just released LAVA! Player.
Also, we will see a brand new Creative.com portal, that adds more content in addition to the usual product information, press releases and technical support on most other web sites. This forms the 3rd and last of the PDE strategy, the PDE Internet Services.
Broadband
Mr Sim emphasized many times that with the arrival of broadband technologies like ADSL and the affordable G.lite, more can be done on the Internet and Creative will be one of them. Web pages will no longer be boring and all look the same because of bandwidth limitations, especially with modems.
Right now, most people would shun bandwidth heavy sites and give up if they have to take 5 minutes to download a Shockwave presentation. Video and audio over the web are still delivered with horrible quality. Only with broadband, will true entertainment on the web be possible.
Mr Sim envisions a future where you will be able to create your own videos on the PC, take a picture of yourself with a webcam and put yourself inside the video, dancing along with another person!
A 3D rendered music video prototype was shown, with a girl prancing around right inside Internet Explorer! You can click to change her clothes, sunglasses and all.
What's In Store?
This is a radical new strategy for a company that traditionally relies on selling PC hardware and peripherals as its core business.
We will see how this works out! Do you think Creative can pull it off? Mail us your thoughts!
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