14 DAY TRIAL // Could it be a great promotional offer? Or simply marketing desperation? Well, regardless of the real purpose behind this move, it seems that the people from Toshiba have decided to launch a great promotional offer for those people that will attend the Home Media Expo that starts today at the Venetian Resort from Las Vegas.
Thus, as the people over at DVDDossier inform us, the company has begun a very serious marketing campaign, whose main point of attraction is the aforementioned special promotional offer. According to an e-mail received by the aforementioned website, the people from Toshiba are announcing a very special offer: for one week, starting with July 22, 2007, the Japanese company will be offering the HD A2 player for only $99, the customer also receiving an extra 3 HD DVD with the purchase.
However, as mentioned earlier, there seems to be a pretty big catch with this offer. Thus, the e-mail quoted earlier mentioned the fact that the users who wanted to cash in on this special promotion had to register during the Home Media Expo. Practically, this means that only the people actually attending the show would be able to enjoy this special price, which sheds a whole new light on the whole thing.
Thus, first of all, the price won't be $99 at all, since the people who'll be able to qualify for the offer will first have to pay the entry fee for the expo show (which, according to the event's website, starts at around 100 US dollars). Thus, practically, the customers will have to pay around 200 US dollars for the device (still quite a good offer, but not as good as it initially looked).
However, there's even a "darker" secret behind this move from Toshiba. There are quite a few people who'll be "forced" to attend this event, due to the nature of their jobs and I'm referring here to reporters. Thus, this might actually be a promotional offer aimed more or less directly to the members of the media, which is actually a very intelligent strategy from the Japanese company (making certain well-aimed "gifts" wrapped up in the package of a promotional offer).
Regardless of Toshiba's real purpose, the fact remains that this move has attained its primary goal (this announcement and implicitly Toshiba's product are all over the news pages on the Internet), drawing quite a lot of attention on both the HD DVD concept and the player itself. And, after all, what are a few thousand dollars when one can then make millions in sales?
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