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Building the high-end brand

Paul's Posts — 25 March 2012

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Building the high-end brand

The high-end doesn’t really have a brand or a neat way to bundle up its concept and present the package to someone interested.

That’s a problem.  For the process of engaging a new community of high-end customers, high-end as a concept must be packaged and easily grasped by a potential customer.  It’s not easy to do but there are many great examples of how to do it.

Take food for example.  A recent branding concept is organic.  It’s nicely bundled and even if most people don’t really know what it means it is gaining acceptance and going viral.

Organic basically means going back to basic farming methods to grow foods without the use of chemicals like industrial fertilizers and pesticides.  Organic isn’t about adding something better – it’s about not adding something bad.  Organic clears the crap out of our food.

The point is the organic brand registers immediately in many people’s heads as better and worth the extra money.  It certainly does in mine.

If we think of high-end as the lack of something bad rather than the addition of something good, it gets easier to bundle a brand around.

High-end audio: get closer to the music than ever before.  High-end clears the crap out of our music.

There are better minds than mine to help build the brand, but the first step is to bundle high-end as a concept that’s simple to grasp and desirable to attain.

Tomorrow, step 2.

Identify, qualify and certify a group of products giving people permission to purchase.

 

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About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(5) Readers Comments

  1. Bassman23

    March 25, 2012 at 8:34 am

    “High-end” as a description may work against the audio market. That term implies expensive and unnecessary, like an ultra-expensive automobile. Most people don’t think or care about the engineering; they only think of them as status symbols.
    “High definition” is a concept easily grasped, as most people know the difference between standard definition and HD video. This leads to a number of marketing concepts. Imagine, “Invite your favorite artists to your home”.

    • March 25, 2012 at 2:30 pm

      Agreed on the first part but high-definition is taken by the TV guys and I am not sure that really says what it’s all about.

  2. Ed S

    March 25, 2012 at 10:54 am

    You are starting to sound too much like a Marketing 101 textbook.

  3. Ed S

    March 25, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    Well, the razor blade industry established itself because they gave the holder (the hardware) away for almost nothing, and made money selling the blades ( the software) at a nice markup. I could see selling “introductory systems” at a nominal price. But these could have the potential for hardware-firmware upgrades that could give the music lover the level of “closeness to the music” they desired or could afford. Just thinking out loud here.

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