Ben Gilbert: preference

Transcript context

…No, the only one that jumps out from the story and the history is the previous incredible power of the brand. Yup. Before we move toward grading here, and I think instead of value creation, value capture today, I want to pose one question to you. This is something that I found myself thinking about a lot in reading Made In Japan and of course, it's why it's titled Made In Japan, which is, let's pick three points in time, the day that Sony started, the heyday of the early 90s, and today, what does Made In Japan mean? Famously, Akio Morita's goal with Sony was to transform Made In Japan on a product from, oh, this is of low quality to, oh, this is of high quality. I'll tell you mine and you can pile on to this. My view of it is it absolutely worked in the '90s. I think when I was buying a lot of Japanese electronics in the '90s, to me, it's like buying a Japanese car today. I own a Honda because I'm certain that it's very high quality and durable. I felt that way about Sony a lot, so it's a mission accomplished for Morita and friends. Today, I don't think that it's any lower quality, but the totally dynamic nature of global supply chains and brands has changed things where I buy so much from American companies that work with design partners overseas as we've learned from Jeremy at Italic in the LP show, where the manufacturers are deeply involved in the design that it feels like I buy more from American companies that are manufactured elsewhere and I don't feel like I buy as many things from Japanese companies. I don't think that I would say my brand perception of something that is made in Japan is any lower than I would have thought in Sony's heyday, but it hasn't continued its ascendancy. It's interesting. That's what I was struggling with when you asked the question, how do I feel today? I 100% agree when Sony was started, Made in Japan for most people in the West, probably meant low quality, signified low quality, and then by Sony's heyday, it signified high quality. The interesting thing about today, also on the same page with everything you said, it's also interesting that that same playbook has been run in so many places now so successfully. The same thing in Korea. After it came right on the heels of the journey of Made In Japan from low quality to high quality, the same thing in Korea, and then the same thing in China in an even bigger way. Just as a consumer having had that played out a bunch of times now, I'm just much less like, oh, okay, if something is low quality or high quality now, that means nothing to me. It means very little to me about whether it might be that way in the future. I just assume that any location that's coming up the learning curve of product production is going to get to a high quality place.…

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