B&O marketing tedium

For years we have impressed on B&O the critical nature of software being of the highest quality and the need for such to impress perhaps even more than the physical product. With physical media largely gone except for a few of us older audiophiles, the era of moving glass and aluminium is sadly over. For years we have seen awful software, so bad at times it breaks a product and leads to it becoming EOL end of line soon. This inertia in B&O seems to have infected their marketing. As far as I can analyse their marketing seems to follow the same template year after year:

Hipster beards.

Pastel coloured rooms.

New colours every few months.

People looking off into the distance in a dissociated way.

Aluminium being dipped in a bath of chemicals.

Someone rubbing a slat of wood.

People that look like the Elves of Rivendell from Lord of the Rings.

The B&O marketing department are more lazy than Porsche’s body design department. Is B&O stuck with its marketing...?

Tricky one this.....luxury brands all do this, trying to promote the aspirational value of their offerings.

I renovated and bought a new kitchen in the spring - the brochures from the likes of Poggenpohl, Bulthaup and Boffi all showed kitchens in aspirational, unliveable spaces, with little / no relevance to how anyone lives. And nor did the brochures show anything useful, all focussing on artistic impression.

B&O's adverts, examples of which you have posted, are easy to mock I guess, as we may not recognise ourselves in those images. But they do have to go after new demographics too, so I give them a pass.

I also dont see much has changed (if you're not enamoured of the above style) - I know the guys on the podcast seem to think the marketing has improved, but its marginal at best.

One thing is clear though - if their products / software were more free of issues, and more ambitious and capable software / user experience wise, then very few of us would be focussing on the quirks of the marketing strategies.

Come up with a few more iconic (or near) designs, and the rest becomes less relevant. 

 

Popcorn and beer opened!......

Puncher:

Popcorn and beer opened!......

Ban boring signatures!

Elves don’t eat popcorn or drink beer.

🤣

I think their marketing is fine. However, their pricing is inconsistent. They should segment their customer base and then make sure they have a the right combination of products at the right prices for that market.

A little more focus on market share would help. The product deign and performance are pretty good based on my experience but the pricing is too high, even for a luxury brand.

My 2 cents worth.

Jaffrey2230:

I think their marketing is fine. However, their pricing is inconsistent. They should segment their customer base and then make sure they have a the right combination of products at the right prices for that market.

My 2 cents worth.

My B&O Home:

Beolab 8002 + Beolab 2 + Beosound Core with Essence Remote (Office) Beolab 6000 + Beolab 11 + Beosound Core with Essence Remote (Bedroom) Beoplay A9 Mk2 (Living Room) Beosound 1 with wireless dock (Portable) Beosound Balance (Dining) Beoplay H95 (Focused listening, travel) Beoplay H9 (3rd gen) (retired) Beoplay P6 (Portable) Beotime wall clock (hallway entrance) Beoremote X (poor man's Halo )

I see what you’re saying. Didn’t they sort of do this a while back with BEOPLAY and BANG & OLUFSEN only later to drop this strategy? How would doing it again help them penetrate the market?

They won’t listen to the price aspect will they. They like to bring out TVs that cost 5-digits in a world where salaries have gone into reverse since the global financial crash of 2007/8.

Puncher:

Popcorn and beer opened!......

Ban boring signatures!

I stopped drinking two years ago but I might open a beer for this one...

the investors must be worried I would have thought 

https://investor.bang-olufsen.com/news-releases/news-release-details/bang-olufsen-annual-report-201920

Results are clearly disappointing compared to last year but they are within the expectations set by management last Spring. So this shouldn’t have caused any further concern to investors.

The business has to enough cash to deal with the Covid crisis in the short/medium term after the capital injection earlier in the year. In this way at least, it is in better shape than a lot of businesses.