The point of differentiation for Denon PerL Pro earbuds within the audio space is its ability to personalize and optimize each user’s music listening experience through its proprietary “adaptive acoustic technology.” But even if the product performs amazingly well for those who experience it, from a marketing perspective this presents an awareness challenge.
“The point of difference with our technology—people don’t know it,” said Mike Allen, Chief Marketing Officer at Denon parent company Masimo. “We do activations and events, and when people get to experience the PerL, it’s one of those “how did you do that?” moments. So, a big challenge for us is getting that brand awareness out there, and getting an understanding of what the product and the technology is all about.”
A key part of Allen’s strategy is to leverage a collaboration with mega pop star Katy Perry—a true fan of the earbuds—as she relaunches her music career. “In my experience, if you can line up an incredible personality with a product at the right point in time, you can get a lot of buzz going. That was the idea behind partnering with Katy as she relaunches her music career and her new album going on tour next year. We’re trying to line up a very unique product with a very unique pop star,” Allen said.
We spoke with the marketing chief about the campaign collaboration and its goals; Perry’s own marketing contributions; challenges to product differentiation within the audio listening space; lessons learned from previous marketing gigs; and more.
Chief Marketer: Denon PerL’s personalized sound is at the heart of the marketing campaign. How does the technology work?
Mike Allen, Chief Marketing Officer at Masimo: The Denon PerL has what’s called adaptive acoustic technology, which basically means that it can customize hearing for each person to your own unique profile. It’s tied to an app, and it sends frequencies into your inner ear which bounce back. The device understands the way you hear different frequencies and optimizes the sound for your ear. It is truly personalized sound.
CM: Why was Katy Perry the right partner for this?
MA: The product’s been out for about a year, but we were launching a new colorway in June, so we wanted to go out there in a big way with somebody who represented the same sort of personalized spirit—who would invest in a unique product, but also was from the world of music. Katy came to mind because I happened to be a fanatic of American Idol, and I knew she was leaving the show and there were rumors that she was launching a new album.
And in my experience, if you can line up an incredible personality with a product at the right point in time, you can get a lot of buzz going. That was the idea of partnering with Katy as she relaunches her music career, a new single and her new album going on tour next year. We’re trying to line up a very unique product with a very unique pop star.
CM: Your collaboration with Perry includes a commercial for Denon PerL featuring an upcoming track on her album and Easter egg clues about her forthcoming music. How did you work with her on those?
MA: She’s incredibly collaborative and creative, and very smart. There are titles to her new songs that will be on the album hidden throughout the track. Early on she said, “Can we put some Easter eggs in the spot?” There are four or five tracks visualized that you can see in different places. She’s hidden these throughout, so the KatyCats [community] and other people would literally stop the film to try and figure out how many they can find.
CM: How has Perry directly contributed to the marketing of the campaign?
MA: It’s a true collaboration. We got the product to Katy, and she loved it. And because she loved it, she said I’m definitely interested in talking to these guys. We sent her the film, and she had the idea of incorporating some of the song title to make it a little more engaging. We developed a completely integrated campaign with digital, social, and built a lot of the activation around her posts and her social channels—which is great for us, obviously, because she has 207 million followers on Instagram. She literally is a media channel by herself.
It’s a great partnership in terms of getting exposure for what we’re doing. And for her, she loved the connection to music and this earbud in particular, because she feels like she hasn’t heard music this well from other devices and wants her fans to be able to enjoy her new music from device like this—so everybody has an optimized experience.
Then in addition, we look at things like the launch of a new album that’s coming up. We look at the tour that she’s got planned for next year. There are a lot of integration and activation opportunities for us as a global company because we’ve got business around the world. So whether it’s here in the Americas or in Europe or Asia Pacific, we’re going to be able to partner with her as well.
CM: How are you communicating this campaign to consumers? Through what channels?
MA: We started with a press event in New York at the end of June. We invited media, talked about the PerLs and our partnership, and Katy played some tracks that are not out yet—just for that group in a very closed environment under NDA, with no recording devices. And then following that, we launched our social campaign beginning of July and then our paid campaign in mid-July. The paid goes across connected TV, out-of-home, print, digital, social, Katy’s channels and our channels, some paid social, and big activation at retail. In some cases, as part of the Denon PerL display, you can actually listen on the PerLs at retail, depending on the country.
CM: Do you have specific strategies for reaching younger audiences?
MA: We’re targeting between 20/25 years old and 45 years old. [They are] early adopters of technology, very active in their lifestyle, go to concerts, the outdoors, very engaged with life. Most people start to lose their hearing, believe it or not, when they’re 25. So you lose track of what sound was perfect for your ears. A lot of older [customers] actually say, oh my gosh, I haven’t heard music that well in 15, 20 years. But it’ll optimize for whatever level of hearing you have.
CM: What are the strategic marketing goals of the campaign? How will you measure its success?
MA: There are a few things we’re looking at. One is overall awareness for Denon. Denon’s a 110-year-old brand. I like to say it’s a famous brand that not a lot of people know. Unless you grew up with audio, you don’t realize the quality of this product and the heritage that we have.
Second is driving engagement, both across our channels, our D2C, and also our partner channels. We’re a big partner with Amazon on this product and other major retailers around the world. So sell-in and sell-through with retailers is another key metric for us. Also, increasing our following on social and our engagement rates on social. And then of course, sales.
CM: What’s coming next for the campaign?
MA: We’re doing some very special things with retailers going into the selling season that are tied in a way to the campaign and the album release. We have some new imagery for the campaign that hasn’t been out there yet—multiple hero shots that will unveil as we go further into the year. And potentially even new personalities. The campaign also has macro influencers—people with pretty good followings on social (a couple million) in every region in the world. We might look at some more things like that.
CM: Thinking more broadly, what are some of the greatest marketing challenges within the audio space?
MA: Well, it’s very competitive. If you go to any online retailer, you’ll probably find somewhere between 25 and 35 choices for wireless earbuds. We also have very big and well-funded competitors, like Apple and Sony and Beats. Trying to compete with bigger ideas and smaller dollars is something that we face every day.
There’s a lot of fluctuation in pricing in this segment. There are a lot of brands that put things on sale. And the other thing is the point of difference I talked about with our technology: people don’t know it. We do activations and events, and when people get to experience the PerL, it’s one of those “how did you do that” moments. So a big challenge for us is getting that out there, getting brand awareness out there, and getting an understanding of what the product and the technology is all about. It is hard to replicate online. So, opportunities with events, activations… we’re looking at as we go into the holiday and into Q1 next year.
CM: You have a long career in marketing. Are there lessons learned or strategies that you’ve taken from previous marketing positions that are informing your work today?
MA: Without a doubt. I spent most of the nineties at Nike, and then I ran an ad agency that ran the global advertising for Adidas for 13 years. I also worked on HP with Megan Trainor and on Sony with Taylor Swift and Peyton Manning. So I’ve got a lot of experience with celebrities, athletes and music stars. And what I’ve always believed is: line up a great product that performs well, stands out in the marketplace, with a personality that so many people like and respect and trust, at a point in time where it’s relevant. If you can line up those three things, like I think we’re doing here, the chance of success are much better.
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