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Metreon, Sony Corp.’s fuzzily conceived and stunningly mispositioned effort to create an upscale, micro-Disneyland – or whatever it was the company was trying to create in downtown San Francisco – got itself a new owner this week.  Sayonara, Sony.  Hello Westfield Group and Forest City Enterprises.  Which may not have the same high-tech ring, but maybe now they’ll get a few more customers. This is big-time real estate news, yes, but it’s also an object lesson that no matter how strong your brand, never launch a vast marketing initiative with a half-vast strategy.  SF Chronicle biz columnist David Lazarus described it today as the “story of what happens when visionary ideas collide with realities of the business world.”  I don’t buy this.   Don’t some visionary ideas take root in the business world everyday, despite those pesky “realities”?   Of course they do.  But they’re conceived and executed with a keen eye on customers.  Or, more specifically, with a perspective gained by seeing through the eyes of the customers you’re trying to reach.   Call it whatever you want, from “user experience” to “retail environment”, but it boils down to doing really great marketing.  Which is what makes the Sony wreckage here even harder fathom.  This is the company that invented a lot of customer experience – most of it really great.  What evidently happened was that Sony suits decided that the technology showplace-cum-educational experience vision wasn’t going to cut it.  What they were more inclined to put out there was a mall with a cover charge.  Actually, cover charges – plural.   Result: No fun, no buzz, no customers.  Except at the movies, but the multi-screen cinema element of Metreon doesn’t share the wealth with Sony.  The tip-off to the half-vastness of Sony’s implementation was revealed early on in the very language it tried to force-feed the marketplace.  The Metreon was not a mall, after all, it was an urban entertainment destination.  “Urban entertainment destination”?  Put this in acronym form and it sounds like a contraceptive device.  Or a roadside bomb.  As an aside, BMW’s rollout of its X-5 SUV back in 2000 came with its own force-feeding funnel.  They tried to fob it off as a sports activity vehicle: SAV, which was supposed to distinguish it from lower-brow SUVs.  This lasted about a week, if I remember.  Bottom line, Sony didn’t give anybody a reason to buy the Metreon “experience” for the simple reason there wasn’t much of one to sell.  There was no there there.  Great brands become great because they deliver on the promise that you’ll get a great experience.  When the brand tries to be the substitute for the experience, it’s the beginning of the end of the brand.  Fortunately for Sony, there’s more than enough goodwill to see it through this toe-stubbing.  But the lesson for lesser brands can’t be overstated.  What, exactly, are you selling and why should anyone want to buy it?  Astonishing how infrequently this question is even asked, much less answered.