My Chat With iRiver

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.digfocus.com/digfocushome.html' target='_blank'>http://www.digfocus.com/digfocushome.html</a><br /><br /></div>As some of you may know, there was yet another press event held in New York City yesterday (there have been so many in the last couple of months). This one, called <a href="http://www.digfocus.com/digfocushome.html">Digital Focus</a> was specifically geared towards (as the name suggests) digital media. In fact, it was like looking at the news items we post here on DMT, in a real live room. :) It was good fun, other than the weird Baseball theme, and I got to meet Joel from Gizmodo and Mark from Shiny Plastic.<br /><br />Anyways, before going to the event, when I saw the vendor list, I noticed that iRiver was going to be there and I was totally psyched about meeting their representatives. In fact, I was revving myself up to give them a piece of my mind regarding their awful marketing strategy which has caused a wonderful line of products to only make a 5% dent in the market. Anyways, here is a short account of what happened...<br /><!><br />As soon as we (Janak from PPCT and I) entered the hall, I basically dragged him straight to the iRiver booth. There were two gentlemen from the iRiver camp showing off the H320, the PMC and the iFP-790. The booth was clearing just as we got there. After a quick oooh'ing and aah'ing over the H320 (which btw is awesome - the screen, the size, the weight, pictures will come in my next photo-essay), I started talking with one of the guys there (Hey Anders). It was cool to find out that he read DMT.<br /><br />Anyways, I immediately started with my spiel about "what the hell are you guys doing to these awesome products?", and "where is your marketing?" and "when are you sending my a free H320? :)". Almost unsurprisingly, he claimed that they had heard it all. He also wasn't very surprised when I told him that I hadn't heard back after leaving serveral messages for their marketing deptartment about perhaps getting in touch and talking about some of the feedback we receive from users here at DMT. When I told them that whenever I tell the iRiver customer service about their product exposure problem, most conversations went like this - (me) "Why don't you advertise, you have a great product", (customer service) "iRiver advertises in so many magazines, how have you not caught any of the ads", (me) "how many magazines", (customer service) "at least three that I know of", (me) Bah! - the iRiver PR guys were just exasperated.<br /><br />So clearly this is not a new problem for the PR section of the company. Here is what it seems to boil down to - apparently the entire iRiver marketing department consists of just one person who is understandably overworked (running after Jenna Jameson must be hard work ;-)). But even more importantly, it seems that all of their sales problems seem to stem from a severe lack of a real marketing budget. So if any iRiver execs (or people that can whisper something into the ears of the iRiver execs) are reading this, please re-think your marketing strategy. I cannot stress more that I absolutely love your products, and tons more people out there would too, if they only knew about them.<br /><br />Before leaving (three hours later) I went back to the iRiver booth (with Mark from Shiny Plastic) and spoke to both PR reps for some time, basically repeating my concerns from before, and talking about strategies for fixing this. They stated that they are not really worried and that iRiver will start to carve out more of the market for themselves in 2005. Also, they are going to be working on better synchronization in release of product news as well as firmware among their different international sites. Well, we'll see.<br /><br />PS - Just to add to the depression, I come home to find Bono (U2) singing a quick 15 second clip of the cover of their Vertigo album in an awesome iPod + iTunes ad.

[ShinyPlastic]

I agree with everything Suhit said, they make great products but their marketing sucks.

There is more competition now in the portable audio and video space and good products alone won't cut it.

For example at Digital Life today Creative were getting a lot of buzz for the Zen Micro (and Virgin getting a lot of anti-buzz for the Virgin player) and I think more journalists will go away from this week remembering and writing about the Zen rather than the iRiver.

In the portable video arena Apex have gome out with a nice gadget (the E2GO MP-2000) that I will be reviewing soon, iRiver however have problems getting hold of review units.... guess which one will get the most coverage on my site.

Feel free to stop by shinyplastic.com (www.shinyplastic.com) and check out all my photo coverage and hands-on coverage of digital life and digital focus. 9 stories posted so far and another 10 to be posted tomorrow.

Mark......

P.S. Nice meeting you and Janak, it's always good to meet people as crazy about gadgets as I am :)

[Chris Gohlke]

I knew I had seen an iRiver ad, so I went looking through magazines. I found this ad in the October 2004 issue of FHM

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/4976/iriverad.jpg

This ad barely tells you what the product is. Without reading the small text at the bottom of the page, you would have no idea what the ad is for. You can barely see the product. Some ad exec probably figured oh, a hot woman will get attention and that is what we want. Sure, sex sells, but you are placing this ad in a magazine that is full of sexy pictures. Heck, in this magazine, the ads stand out because they are the only pages that don't have scantily clad women in them. But at least, if you are going to use the sexy hook, provide some meat to the ad so you can actually use the impression to generate some product awareness. If you don't read the text at the very bottom of the page, you will have no idea what this product is for.

I suggest they use the iPods popularity and consumer recognition against the iPod by picturing an iPod and an iRiver in the same ad with a feature comparison chart. Use a text line like "iPod, Who's your Daddy".

[Suhit Gupta]

I knew I had seen an iRiver ad, so I went looking through magazines. I found this ad in the October 2004 issue of FHM
Yeah, FHM, Rolling Stone and (I can't remember the third) are the magazines.
This ad barely tells you what the product is. Without reading the small text at the bottom of the page, you would have no idea what the ad is for. You can barely see the product. Some ad exec probably figured oh, a hot woman will get attention and that is what we want.
You are completely right. I can just barely see the PMC there.
I suggest they use the iPods popularity and consumer recognition against the iPod by picturing an iPod and an iRiver in the same ad with a feature comparison chart. Use a text line like "iPod, Who's your Daddy".
Haha, that would be awesome if they did that.

Suhit

[ShinyPlastic]

Yep, on that ad the last thing my eyes would gravitate towards is the iRiver.

[Chris Gohlke]

How about this:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/4976/IRIVERA.jpg

[Suhit Gupta]

Dude, such comparison charts are exactly what iRiver needs. And imagine how much more the H320/340 will blow the iPod away.

Suhit

[James Fee]

Do you really want to compare with the iPod like that? These one on one comparisons are never a good thing when the product you are comparing it to doesn't sell itself on features. To take on the iPod mystique is tough. The 4g iPod improved the battery life to the point, people really don't care about it anymore (well most people wouldn't).

Frankly the better play in my mind is show how versatile it is. I'd just build off of Microsoft's idea that so many stores to buy music and video from is a great thing and you'll be able to play those songs and movies many other places. Some people are going to buy the iPod on style and no chart will change those folks, but those who want the "total experience" with their music and video would want iRiver.

[Chris Gohlke]

Some people are going to buy the iPod on style and no chart will change those folks, but those who want the "total experience" with their music and video would want iRiver.

Agreed, but the total experience folks need to be shown what the iRiver can do that iPod cannot. I think with the common assumption that iPod is the best, you need to directly explain the benefits.

[Suhit Gupta]

Also, versatility doesn't only mean that the UI has to be great. The UI of the iRiver is no slouch. The iPod made the push with the great UI early and there was no stopping its popularity.

Plus, when you buy a laptop or a desktop or a PDA, what percentage of time do you spend on looking at the looks of the machine, while what percentage of time do you spend on the specs. I think people are just too caught up in the popularity of the iPod to give anything else a chance. Note that I am not only supporting iRiver here since this holds true for Rio, iAudio, Creative, etc as well.

I have often asked a consumer who is about to buy a music player, or rather is about to buy an iPod (since MP3 player is now synonymous with iPod) about why they are going to buy the iPod vs. anything else. And most of them don't even know that there exists anything else. Pretty much everyone in the gym is wearing an iPod an often I hear them lamenting about how they are stuck with AAC files and its non portability.

Suhit

[James Fee]

I think the other problem WMA players have is that there are too many of them. That means many accessories don't get adapted for many of them and ad dollars are spread thin.

People always use the example of PPC over Palm to explain how iPods are going to be hurt. I don't really consider that a true example. It was more HP over Palm and in turn the other PPC makers had to innovate and went along for the ride. If it was up to Casio and Philips to lead the charge, I doubt we'd see PPC as a viable platform today.

In this case, if iRiver/Rio/Creative could make that next iPaq, then maybe they could pull the whole market with them. But having 70 players means the message gets lost sometimes and all Apple has to do is run a few ads with U2 and enjoy the press.

[ctmagnus]

While we have the master (Suhit) here, I have one slightly-OT question for him:

Does the file system of the IHP-120/140 integrate nicely into Windows Explorer, like flash drives do, or does it require a separate app like the Nomad Jukebox 3 does?

[Chris Gohlke]

While we have the master (Suhit) here, I have one slightly-OT question for him:

Does the file system of the IHP-120/140 integrate nicely into Windows Explorer, like flash drives do, or does it require a separate app like the Nomad Jukebox 3 does?

It mounts just like an external USB drive. This was the main feature I wanted when I switched from the DJ to the iRiver.

[rlobrecht]

I read somewhere that you still had to run an iRiver app to tell the iRiver that you had copied music to it.

[Chris Gohlke]

There is a database software application that you can install on the host PC. However, you can copy music to and from the device with any computer just by plugging it in as a normal USB drive. I have never had a need for the software and am not even entirely sure why one would want to.

[rlobrecht]

I wonder what that software does then. I'd have to say having it work with regular USB storage drivers is definitely killer. They should be able to sell a lot of units on that basis alone.

[Suhit Gupta]

Exactly. You can just plug it into a USB port and now you can surf your files. The database application (which you can actually use on the device itself as well) just creates a full db of all the files you have on your iRiver. It makes for much faster access.

Suhit

[kiwi]

Exactly. You can just plug it into a USB port and now you can surf your files. The database application (which you can actually use on the device itself as well) just creates a full db of all the files you have on your iRiver. It makes for much faster access.

Suhit

Is this the way ALL the iRiver MP3 products work? I am looking for a flash based player to take skiing with me this winter. The IPOD I have will freeze :-)

BTW - I owned an Iriver 350 CD player a few years ago and had a few problems with iRiver customer support as well. It was a 1 person operation as far as I could tell at the time. too bad. Nice products.