[Bosh]

After more than two decades as a creative director with some of the world's top ad agencies and almost that long as an audiophile, I can tell you three things about the advertising in this category:

1]  Most of it appears unprofessional (and in the media, how we appear is what we are).

2] All of it preaches to the choir (which assures us of a highly interested audience and a near-empty collection plate).

3]  Almost none of it builds brands (and "brands" are the only things consumers buy).

Before you decide where to click on the poll question, keep in mind that these three areas can be improved without a huge increase in your advertising investment.  Planning, strategy and thought are much more important than flash, splash and dazzle.  Billions were spent today to get messages in front of you in all media, most if not all of those messages you've already forgotton because money is no subsitute for an IDEA.

Trouble is, for the most qualified people to take on small, even "large" clients in a specialized category like this--assuming you're not SONY, that is--they have to be into it.  Remember that the smallest cereal, software company or electric shaver represents a much bigger advertising client than even the you-know-who's of audio (you know, the ones that buy the back covers).

This is all vapor right now, not an existing entity.  I'm just doing an interest check.  So how about it?  

If there were such a thing as "an ad agency that speaks audio" would you at least want to know more?

Thanks!

[infiniti driver]

I will put some interaction in here for kicks and grins

1] Most of it appears unprofessional (and in the media, how we appear is what we are).

   The status quo for advertising and marketing teaching in the Universities and College programs are aimed at the 12 to 26 year old audience. Mainly you want to market to the female is the general teachings and the male will follow. Look at half time super bowl. The 40 year old with wife and 2 children definitely was not the target audience. Gangster thugs seem to be the ones with "da money" and this is what mainstream advertising seems to be pushing for. If you look at advertisements for the ultra-rich as in Palm beach media publications, these are well crafted for the 60 year old up or the 20 year olds that just got their first job out of Harvard making 275K/year. Look at Cadillac. You get the picture?

I cry foul..but who am I to run the show?

2] All of it preaches to the choir (which assures us of a highly interested audience and a near-empty collection plate).

It depends on your definition of the "choir". Who actually buys a wooden knob for 475.00US in hope it will make their stereo sound better? Who are the fools? As far as I see on mainstream television, nothing I see points me anyway toward the direction of interest I would have in any of the products. Seeing a stylish 24 year old female walking through a wheat field in a laxative commercial certainly would not make me "rush out" and try the product.

3] Almost none of it builds brands (and "brands" are the only things consumers buy).

Only crazy people (as far as the marketeers are concerned) would have anything to do with anything other than a multi-million dollar corporation or its products. How many audiophile accessories are UL rated?

It seems that even something as harmless as creating a product that can serve the small niche we work within (audio, music reproduction and enjoyment) is met with BOOOO if mentioned on a web forum as "self promotion" Well guess what? It is all about self promotion! You are promoting your ideas and experiences along with others who share in a similar interest. Who cares if someone makes a few bucks (no one is getting rich, that is for sure) by developing a useable product and self "promoting" their experience of this product. If it is "no good" it will weed itself out. I find that whoever started this trend of "finger pointing" and "web policing" and cutting folks down that have something off the beaten path to be ridiculous behavior at best. IF someone has something that works for them using either scientific, trial and error or a combination of all of it, why should they not share it for some profit? Small manufactures simply can't take the gamble of hiring a glossy ad agency to market their wares.

Case in point: Radio advertising.

Folks say that radio advertising sells. It sells big! Ok, if this is so, why don't radio ad executives simply give away, 20 free spots for trial purposes and if this satisfy the client, they can sign up for 200 spots at regular rates. How come account execs. are not willing to put their neck out on a product that they make their living from? Since it is an intangible, why don't stations simply offer this? It certainly would increase sales many fold if the spots were "as good" as presented. No ?

So, you have anything and everything supported by a promotional program. Why is it utter taboo if someone has an idea and wants to share it with others for resale using a pro-bono source? In fact, you would find that if generally accepted, the profiteer would more than gladly donate to a site after the results of an experiment were tallied.

I simply feel that the recording industry, the advertising industry and the axe grinders have put themselves in a situation that will come falling down on them eventually. It is the small guy that runs the economic super-power. Take away the small guys ability to do commerce and you have the mighty shark of major corporations swallowing up everything and you know that this is what causes quality to go in the dumper. Look at the loudspeakers that start with the letter "B". Look at the super bowl half time show. This is what they "think you want" and if you stifle the little guy, this is certainly what you deserve. Junk!



[Bosh]

You wrote:  "The status quo for advertising and marketing teaching in the Universities and College programs are aimed at the 12 to 26 year old audience."

Actually no, it's not.  But nobody ever learned a damn thing about advertising at a "university or college" anyway.

You wrote:  "It depends on your definition of the 'choir'."

For my purposes, "preaching to the choir" refers to limiting reach and messaging to the same old audiophile publications while ridiculing the "mass market" for expressing interest in (and buying) Bose, Cambridge, Polk and other brands that actually speak to them in a broader media context than audio's equivalent of "Stamp Collecting Monthly".

You wrote:  "...why don't radio ad executives simply give away, 20 free spots for trial purposes..."

As soon as I receive the 20 free power cords (or whatever it is that you make for a living), I'll call one of my "radio ad exec" friends and see to it that he pony's up.

You wrote:  "Why is it utter taboo if someone has an idea and wants to share it with others for resale using a pro-bono source?"

Assuming you are (somehow) serious about that question, here is the answer: Because "resale" and "pro-bono" are rather in conflict, don't you think?  If you want to use a media device to reach your target market and profit from the exchange, the provider of that media has every right to a cut.  As importantly, the users of non-commercial media have every right to be shielded from sales pitches.

[Carlman]

I think it's a great idea.  I'm not a manufacturer of audio gear but I've noticed a disconnect between what the business owner's strengths are and my perception of that business.  This happens with small audio and with car parts companies.  (my other hobby is cars)  I'll talk to someone that's clearly excellent but suffers from a poor or non-existent reputation or vice versa.

I notice this disconnect when I look at their site, read about them on forums, then call the owner.  I don't get a very consistent image because it's not communicated well.  Plus there's forums.  Forums can run amuck without any control.  This is another dynamic I think owners overlook too often.  

Most of the smaller business owners are very good at what they do.  They're not particularly marketing-savvy.  It's a generic case of staying within core compentencies.  What does a speaker designer know about reach and penetration... where would they go for their marketing research?  Do they consider their perception or the perception of their products?  How?  These questions often go unanswered because they're considered unimportant to the owner.  Reputation is all they need.  Even if that's not communicated by the web or other worldwide media.  Many small business owners don't even realize that their website is a global marketing tool.

OK, so I've made this big point about how advertising is good... now why won't people flock to your doors to get it?  Money.

The reason a lot of small business owners get by is by not spending a lot of money on advertising.  However, they don't grow as much... and maybe they don't want to.  But, there are some that do want to grow and have to realize there's a happy medium between a BIG ad budget and NO ad budget.  So many business owners I know have been burned by the 'slick ad exec' or have heard stories about it...

You can't give away work for free.  Also you can't buy advertising when product isn't selling.  There's a lot of intricacies here that the small business owner has to consider and deal with.  So, I'd vote yes (if I were a manufacturer) but with a scaled approach.  What clever ideas do you have that are inexpensive to start?  That way I can start small, spend a few bucks in the beginning.. when some results are obtained, increase the budget a little... grow the business at a slow to medium pace.  

If you want more info from me, feel free to PM me with your number.

[Bosh]

Such a thoughtful and informed post.  Thank you.

All your points are true and all are valid issues that consipre to keep the smaller business person small.

But somehow, a garage operation run by two men, a Mr. Jobs and a Mr. Wozniak, turned into Apple Computer.  A guy named Phil Knight started out selling sneakers (basically hand-made things with a "swoosh" graphic sewn onto their sidewalls) from the trunk of his car.  Any of these formally small business men would be happy to tell us that the first, Visa-card-max-out advertising they did became the best investments they ever made.  And like all good investments, the only thing that's changed is how much they now plug into the account.

Equally interesting is the fact that both Apple and Nike began their now storied relationship with advertising history with agencies that, like their own operations, were small, hungry and anxious to challenge the status quo.

To back off a bit from the American Dream those two examples embody, and to answer some of your points in a less poetic, more actionable way, consider this:

The small business owner who advertises without benefit of an agency not only does so less effectively, he does so more expensively.

Huh?

Without getting into pros and cons of the magazines (all of 'em) who will "design your ad for you" as long as you buy some space (which is something like my being willing to tell you what time it is if you agree to give me your watch), consider that the agency has in its quiver an arrow called "media effeciency" that works like this:

You, small business person, are buying one, small space ad in this month's issue of Thisn'thatOphile.  I, as an ad agency, am buying eight small space ads and two full pagers (not to mention drinks and lunch for the magazine's head of sales).  Who do you think has the clout to get that space for less?  So much less, in fact, I can add my markup and you STILL pay less for the media.  Plus, that same clout can work to get your ad better placement; color for the price of black & white; tie-ins with the magazine's promotions and website, etc.

As it is, most small advertisers buy their space the same way and with as much thought as when they buy lines in the "For Sale" section of the local Pennysaver.

All of this in mind, we now BOTH--client and agency--have real skin in the game.  Because the more clients the agency has the greater media clout can be brought to bear for the benefit of YOUR communications plan, small as it may be at first.

Done right (not easy), this sort of thing is an all-win for client, media outlet, agency and consumer.

But then there's getting clients to pay their bills.  On time and in full.  And THAT'S where small, specialist agencies get screwed, blued and padlocked.

In fact, come to think of it...

forget the whole thing.

 

[Carlman]

I hope you understood that I'm on your side and that it's a great idea.  I also hope you realize not everyone wants to be the next Apple (which has always struggled to stay profitable, BTW)...

There has to be a balance and reality must be taken into consideration.  You can think big and have huge dreams but, you have to tackle the here and now with a plan.  If your ad agency offers no path or strategy, you've shot yourself in the foot already.  Slow and steady wins the race.  And in this business, a little helpful business advice might have to be part of your offerings.

How long has Steve Jobs been at it?  How many failures has he recovered from?  It's taken a lot more than advertising to keep him going.  That's creative thinking and strategy.  Every business must have it.... including an ad agency.  I applaud the idea and wanted to add food for thought to the endeavor.

Best of luck... even if you decide not to forget it.

-Carl

[JohnR]

But somehow, a garage operation run by two men, a Mr. Jobs and a Mr. Wozniak, turned into Apple Computer.

I find this a very interesting discussion. In your Apple example, Jobs and Wozniak presumably stopped making computers (themselves) a very very long time ago. At some point, they changed from doing something they loved doing (tinkering with computers) and started doing something else, that is, building a larger business and hiring other people to do the tinkering. Not to say they don't love doing that too, but I think I can see why not everybody might.

Here's a scenario. Suppose I started putting together speakers in my garage and selling them. All well and fun, but word gets out and the first transition will be where I have to put the price up just to make it worth dealing with the loss of all my free time. The next will be where I quit my day job. Then (perhaps with the help of a good startup ad agency), I have to start hiring people to make cabinets and assemble speaker. But this is a different business now than what I started with. The speakers are no longer individually handmade by the guy who posts on the web forum (say) and I have to compete on price with hundreds of other speaker manufacturers making basically the same thing.

The difference (I would like to hear what you think about this) to an Apple or a Nike? First, I don't have a unique niche product. Second, it's not a product "everybody" might buy. (So, when Wozniak and Jobs made that first computer I guess very few thought everybody would want a computer, but that was because it was so new. I think it's well-proven that very few people want expensive loudspeakers). Third, I have to be prepared to do something completely different if I am successful. In which case... why not start a business in an area that is newer, less crowded, and more likely to make some decent money?

[Bosh]

Uh oh.  Looks like I'm suddenly running an on-line Dear-Abby-meets-B-School course.  So I hope for everybody's sake I'm not totally full of shit.

I think the soul of your example comes down to this, almost last line:

"...and I have to compete on price with hundreds of other speaker manufacturers making basically the same thing".

John, what you have described is the plight of nearly every marketer in the world.  Product parity.

I mean we all can't be Henry Ford, or even Henry Kloss.

Faced with this very issue, manufacturers and service providers large and microscopic turn to other business people to help them figure a way out of the "basically the same thing" trap.  

The business people they turn to work in advertising agencies.

Your product is only "the same" until we discover what makes it unique.  And your product is only a soap until customers start asking for "Ivory".

[JohnR]

What's B school?

Anyway, I see what you're saying but that isn't really the point. The point is that if you make my speaker into "ivory" then I have to do different things than what got me into it in the first place. And my question then is, is that what I actually want to do? And if it is, what difference does it make if I sell speakers or soap?

[Bosh]

1)  Business School.

2)  Only you can answer that.

[JohnR]

Oh yeah, right.

Well, I think your second answer is pretty lame. I'm asking *you* what you think Joe who goes into the speaker business is doing it for. You don't seem to have any idea...

[Shamrock Audio]

Okay, so I'm the world's worst advocate for my own company. I'm good at what I do, but like many, I'm not good at promoting what I do.  I might be intrigued by the notion of hiring an ad agency, but the last thing I could abide is coming off as some sort of carnival barker - or worse. I refuse to stoop to the typical trash-fest marketing hype that seems to be pervasive in advertising these days. I'm selling a product that I have my heart into, not trying to entice adolescent boys to lust over some silicone model. I am a small company with scarce resources to expend, and I am more than a little opinionated about how my company is portrayed to the public.

I can certainly see the need for the services that an agency can offer my company. I would think that anyone in such a business would have high confidence in themselves and their abilities. Attorneys often take cases on a contingency basis. That means they have some skin invested in the venture. The better their client does, the better they do as well. They don't produce for their client, they lose some skin. Something to consider?

As an aside; I once had a guy offer to do our web site for us. All he wanted was 40% of our sales. As you can see, I still do my own web site.

[infiniti driver]

In my initial reply, I did sound like I was bagging on the guy..for that, my apoligies. That said, this is what I look at and I am certain consumers of the equipment that we share here in the audio world takes notes.

The more a manufacturer spends "period" to get his or her product to the market place involves these things:

Cost to consumer goes up

----------OR-----------

Sacrifice in quality of raw materials.

This is the simplest of facts. If I build a speaker that has 60 dollars worth of parts in it (20 dollar woofer, 10 dollar tweeter, 6 dollar crossover, 14 in the enclosure) and labor (double that) and insurance to cover my business, add some more, and rent and electricity (more) and a meager weekly paycheck (more) and my web page (more), time it takes answering prospects questions via  the telephone (tons more), my legal expenses, (more) an advertising agency, (more) the actual advertisment (more) and I have not figured in my daily cost to live, rent, car, car insurance, clothes, food, gas, dinner out at times, etc...you get the picture.

So, anywhere but the product that you have costs, you have sacrifice. This speaker with the cheap 20 dollar woofer and the 10 dollar tweeter can retail at over 500 dollars and I have seen examples of a 30 dollar woofer being used in a 4000 dollar speaker system, so there!

I think a proper balance between what you must spend on your products to produce them and some form of outside support does make the business model as it is difficult to do it all yourself...but many do it!

I also feel that people here on these forums know the difference between paying thousands of dollars for a boutique name that basically is using a very cheap set of drivers (one popular best seller speaker actually has a driver that can be obtained for eighty seven cents) and half-assed sound and those willing to build a speaker system that has real parts in it and real workmanship. Look at the hornshoppe. Ed is not making a killing on these things. 200 dollars in drivers, selling them for 700 or so. Believe me, in this day of what it takes to do business, cost of production times 5 is the norm to stay afloat. When I was looking at going into the loudspeaker manufacturing business, I figured that my products actual cost to build times 3 was a dead break even. Cutting production expenses was not a viable situation thus quality falls. Cutting all the fat that got in the way of doing business was viable. Face it, advertising is a must. It can make or break you. When I worked for a large electronics company in upper management, 19% of our GROSS PROFIT went into advertising. The product had to be marked up to off-set this..as they were not in the position to cut corners in the product. I still think a TOTAL budget of 19% of the gross profit to be reasonable. Now, show me someone that would really work for that? That is bottom line total advertising cost. Little or big, the figure works. Can you afford that? How much does it cost? I am certain that a start-up would have a much rougher time trying to realise this figure because it is higher for a start-up in real money.

Anyone priced a double-truck in a major newspaper lately?

[Bosh]

Oh yeah, right.

Well, I think your second answer is pretty lame. I'm asking *you* what you think Joe who goes into the speaker business is doing it for. You don't seem to have any idea...

Actually no.  I have no idea why" Joe" goes into the speaker business.  I don't know Joe.  However, if Joe went into the sock business, I would feel safe in assuming he did so in order to sell socks.  So for the sake of providing you with an answer you may find more to your liking, I'll go out on a limb here and guess that Joe is going into the speaker business to be in the speaker business, insomuch as that entails, I think, the design, manufacture and sales of speakers.

However, I must point out that I am NOT a medical professional.  So if Joe goes into the speaker business and honestly doesn't know why, I can't say with any degree of confidence that an advertising agency should be his first stop.

If your question is leading to some twee "insight" along the lines of "he does it for the LOVE of speakers!" and somehow success in the speaker business is an automatic guarantee of selling out, shilling inferior merchandise and becoming a cog trapped in a heartless machine of his own making, then I'd suspect you read too much Charles Dickens.

I can see the sweeping drama of the ending now, poor Joe crying out to the darkess of his expansive and luxuriously appointed listening room/executive suite:  "I've built an empire and lost my soul!"

It'll have Franco Serbkin weeping into his grappa and P.W. Klipsch  laughing hard enough to piss his angel robes.

  [/i]

[Bosh]

"The more a manufacturer spends "period" to get his or her product to the market place involves these things:

Cost to consumer goes up

----------OR-----------

Sacrifice in quality of raw materials."

[/quote]


Wait a second here; who schooled you in business, Stalin?

The more a manufacturer manufactures, the greater his clout with suppliers and the less each widget, sprocket or amplifier costs him to make.  I mean c'mon!  Who do you think pays more for a gross of the SAME caps, you or larger outfit that buys them buy the container load?

And further, the more the manufactured item evolves into a BRAND, the less that item costs to make BETTER because, for example, WBT connectors Want To Be Seen on Kimber Cables, and so on (Intel Inside).  The better a Brand becomes in both reality and perception the more consumers are WILLING to pay for it.

You guys...tisk tisk

 

It's 2004.  The commies lost.

[JohnR]

Wait a second here; who schooled you in business, Stalin?

Wow, for an advertising wiz, you're doing a pretty lousy job of representing yourself. Perhaps you should hire a professional who knows how to talk to people

[infiniti driver]

The more a manufacturer manufactures, the greater his clout with suppliers and the less each widget, sprocket or amplifier costs him to make. I mean c'mon! Who do you think pays more for a gross of the SAME caps, you or Joe Lau who buys them buy the container load?

First of all, our interest in high fidelity rejects anything that is by "the container load" because this is how QC goes to the dumper. McIntosh used to state that "out of tens of thousands of transistors we purchase, we must go through the painstaking task of rejecting 90% of them since they do not meet our rigid testing or conform to our high standards of matching" Resistors as well and all other components. " The Lady has a keen eye, all our front glass is inspected intensively for any type of flaw and polished to perfection before it is installed in your fine product"

This is 2004, we dont buy junk anymore.

We want manufactures like balanced audio and others that give a rats ass about doing it right..

Look at this, this is advertising....

http://www.newcenturytv.com/BAT/


Guess who paid for bulk packaging? We did because 90% of it was JUNK!

Look, I can grab 100K and buy 44 pallett loads of raw driver from china and take the money I saved and put it into advertising but I would much rather deal with a supplyer that is strict with QC before the ship and will allow me to send back non-calibrated units without restocking fee. Bulk purchasing goes one way, you can't send them back...you eat a huge percetile of goods that don't make the cut. Go buy any lot of 144 drivers and unless they are Dynaudio, Eton, focal or other top shelf components, your toleration of spec can be up to or more than 35% rejection and this is without a 900 lb pallet being dropped, ruining another 15% bunched in the middle absorbing the shock...that you find out about , a few days later..

Bottom line, high quality products are not mass produced. Bulk shippments have a poor record. I can give you first hand examples since I was a buyer, shipping and receiving manager, and inventory control for a major installer/design team in South Florida where we would have 300K of one brand in daily shippments enter the inventory. Top name stuff, large failure rate in simalar installs as well. Mass means JUNK.


AND, branding is an audiophile poison!!! Brand names have nothing in common with indivigual models. Take Chevrolet. You have the vega and the vette. Oh no...the vette is a Chevrolet, they made a vega...I better not buy Chevrolet..

Branding is something advertisers want you to know about as positive, Rolex has Dogs as well as Mercedes Benz. Brands mean nothing, unless that brand makes only one product or maybe two that are very simalar.

Also, the fewer people you deal with, the tighter the product is.

Take that to the bank.

JUNK sucks.

[infiniti driver]

ok, we know mass piles of good becomes the average of the lowest common denominator.

How to use advertising at its fullest without the BS, the sneeky deals (I can't get) or the fancy suppers is to first, build a damn good product for a fair (to everyone) value. Go on the web and get your product reviewed by several REPUTABLE sources. Then, have a web-site that describes the product with links to the reviews and offer a deal to the buyer for trial period gurantee. This model works, it builds, it reamins high quality and it lets the products AND THE CUSTOMERS speak for themselves. In this, you have not only honesty, but integrety and something to push the product line to profitability.

Those who "have it made" like Sonus Faber, Martin Login, Dynaudio, Krell, Lamm, Quad..(many others)....they have a following but it all started quite small with growing pains. Look at Green Mountain. Roy builds great speakers and I have yet to hear one of them. Our community "trusts" what our community says about things because no one has any reason to mislead anyone when it comes to a black and white analysis of a product. Either it is a good to great value or it is not as great a value. Their are speakers that get great reviews by TAS and ST-phile and many will say they did not like it ...because..... and guess what, those folks are really averaging out the value in the product. They also see a 12 thosand dollar product with a few hundred dollars in parts a total rip-off. Get to know them, trust them..and their words of advice are very sincere.

Ok, I made a zonko 22 (the zonko 21 was a famed imagination from Pat Snyder of Speakerlab circa 1972)

Ok. what could you say about my Zonko 22 speaker (yes I have built a speaker I called the zonko 22 and sold over 100 pairs of them to friends, family and aquaintances). It is an 8" 2 way in a large box, transmission line, used a Gefco woofer and an audax tweeter, looked great and was 35 to 20K +/-2.5dB with a sensitivity of 92dB/I w 1m and weighed 72 lbs each and sold for 800 a pair. They could absorb 300 watts a channel and rearrange your house. Many said "it was the best speaker they ever heard"

So, could you bring the Zonko to market? how would you do this?

Ok, I know how I would..I would capitalize on the "zonko name" It is sudo famous you know....and 22 is E. Smiths jersey number..hummmm

None of this does anything for anyone here that wants a pair of great speakers.

Items are ran through the wringer in these parts and the truth comes out. The Panasonic (matshushita) SAXR45 has grabbed serious attention and no one from Panasonic spent a gol damned dime to advertise it here. I bet hundreds have been sold because of reports...and this is just here and a few other forums. Nothing to matshushita but to a start up?
It would be super sweet and it happens as well.

[Bosh]

"Out of tens of thousands of transistors we purchase, we must go through the painstaking task of rejecting 90% of them since they do not meet our rigid testing or conform to our high standards of matching".  

And you know, only the 8 plumpest, red-ripe tomatos go into that itty bitty Contidina can.  

Budwiser hand selects only the finest, freshest hops from around the world.

Sorry Charlie, not every tuna gets to be Starkist!

This was never meant to be a "mass production can/can't be quality" thread.  Besides, what counts as "mass production" for Jaeger-LeCoultre (or Morgan Motorcars) is something altogether different for Timex (or Ford).

And to whomever said "AND, branding is an audiophile poison!!! "  I can say only the following:  Wilson, Sonus Faber, AR, Martin Login, Dynavector, Dynaudio, Krell, B&W, Lamm, Halcro, Quad, Thorens (same current designer as Acoustic Signature, but selling at 100x the rate due to something called brand goodwill), Tannoy, Cardas, Nordost, Ayre, McIntosh, Rega...

So I have to see it differently.  Brands are certainly NOT "audiophile" poison.  They're "DIY" poison.  Which is fine and just about the whole point for that approach in the first place.  But this post was not meant for that community any more than it was meant to challenge or sniff at DIY (or very small scale production).

That's all apples and oranges (the majority of which are rejected by Sunkist, by the way, and they don't even brag about it anymore).  

[infiniti driver]

Honestly, If I had 40 pairs of Zonko 22's ready for to go, packaged and so forth with the above description, how would you advertise them? We already know, spec wise, they are better than many products offered, testimonials from users saying "the best they have heard" and I want to market them for say. 900 bucks.

What would be your first step?

How much would you ask for up-front before we get to the plan of action?