Sony Trumps Headphones Advertising While Competitive Brands Battle

PR Log (Press Release) – Jul 28, 2009 – With the first half of 2009 in the books, Sony continues its reign as the most heavily advertised brand of headphones with a share over 33% for 6 of the past 7 months.

While Bose headphones were also heavily advertised in 2008, the brand has dropped off significantly in the category throughout 2009. Their average brand share has gone from 12.3% in 2008 to 7.1% YTD 2009 June, and IFR Print Tracking services show competing brands have likely benefited from this.

JVC was the first to take advantage of the gap and made history at the same time.  Their brand share jumped to a massive 42.8% in February 2009, making this the highest percentage JVC has ever reached in the category.

Sennheiser was next to benefit with big months in both March and May recording brand shares of 12.4% and 25.8% respectively. Skullcandy also made its way into the ranks in April at 16.8% brand share, following it up with an even bigger month of June at 22.3%.

While Sony has established itself as the dominant brand for print advertising in the category, 2009 has proven to be a year of fluctuation and opportunity for competing brands. With the second half of the year already underway, there’s again more excitement in the headphones category.

The actionable data provided by IFR Monitoring helps retailers and manufacturers measure critical advertising and shelf share across the country and around the world. IFR Monitoring exists in over 40 countries, and is part of the GfK Group, the No. 4 market research company worldwide.

This snapshot analysis is provided by IFR Monitoring Print Tracking service. IFR Monitoring covers the Top 100 major newspapers across the USA, including 20 key mailbox locations from the Top markets.

For questions, please contact Fernando Arcieri at FArcieri@ifrmonitoring.com