Reilly Newman | Whenever the world experiences a technological change that creates new opportunities, there’s a gap in the mind and market for a new business to dominate. From dating apps to the creation of chocolates, laundry detergent, and automobiles this happens because the gap in the market will be instantly flooded with businesses in hopes of their product being the one that fills the gap in our mind.
Over time, this gap fills up as the wheels of technological keep moving the world forward onto newer things. As the gap fills, only a handful of winners, sometimes even just one, will take control of the market gap by dominating the mind gap with their brands. You think chocolate, Hersheys comes to mind. You think detergent, Tide pops up. You think cars, Ford appears. You think soda, Coke pours into our conscious mind. Now when you think electric vehicles, Tesla zaps to mind. The battle of market is a battle of the brands. When a business wins in brand, to the victor goes the spoils.
A fantastic example of this is the HD DVD vs Bluray DVD brand-battle. Two well-funded brands birthed from Japan saw the opportunity created by the advancements of DVD technology and pursued to dominate it. HD DVD was backed by Toshiba and took the approach of pushing a red color palette and making agreements with brands like Microsoft/Xbox and implementing HD throughout their lineup of Toshiba products. Bluray, on the other hand, was Sony’s answer to the market and obviously pursued blue as their color of choice. They implemented their technology in their PlayStations and across other third-party DVD players as well. Both extremely large companies going head-to-head as they race to be the victor of the technology. Like a classic good vs evil, this red vs blue war was obvious as DVD racks were divided by a red side and a blue side.
Looking back, it may be easier to examine why this technology gap was filled so quickly and how Bluray won in the end. First, you had two very huge companies fill the space. They also already had connections in the market and their own products. It was an easy adjustment for them and was a natural next step in the technology that agreed with their existing logistics and business model.
Bluray being victorious in the end may have been due to their strategy and tactics of the brand. The logo for their technology was better and more iconic. HD was boring and not special. Bluray was far more unique and memorable. This could add to the perceived value of the branded technology to have it feel more special. The coordinated effort of brand name, Bluray, with the iconic blue color palette made the connection to the visual identity even stronger for the consumer. Another win. The naming convention was more special and branded, as HD was too generic and not appealing as it was just a literal definition. Bluray (the name) seems more proprietary and valuable. This isn’t taking into account advertising or marketing, but simply because – as stated above – we can see that the battle for the mind-gap was in favor of Bluray.
The brand of Bluray was able to dominate the mind better than HD due to the elements and position of its brand. Sony was also able to get more movie makers to produce in Bluray due to the technology, however DVD was still the dominating platform. The higher cost of creating the Bluray over HD made Bluray the “premium” choice as HD aligned with more of an economical market with Microsoft by its side. The sheer power of the Bluray brand has now graduated to a household name where you don’t say “do you have a DVD or HD version?”, but rather “do you have the movie in DVD or Bluray?”—the brand itself has become synonymous with high definition as well as its iconic blue color thanks to the brand’s domination of the mind leading to its victory in the market.
