Practice Areas

Consumer

 

Altec Lansing - Giving life(style) to a consumer electronics brand.

 

Challenge

Altec Lansing is an industry leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of digital audio speakers, including the highly successful inMotion brand of portable speakers for personal audio devices like the iPod. But after more than a decade of leadership in the digital speaker category, Altec Lansing was being challenged on a number of fronts. Many new competitors were emerging to attack Altec Lansing's leadership position. Established speaker brands such as JBL, Klipsch, Creative Labs and Bose launched initiatives as well. In addition, companies such as Logitech and Apple leveraged their computer industry experience to gain positions in the portable speaker category in a relatively short time.

 

Solution

Altec Lansing hired CRT/tanaka in late 2005 to help build a lifestyle brand position and engage new customers through traditional media relations efforts and trade show support. CRT/tanaka recommended that the brand change how people think about digital speakers.

In a market that is intensely price-driven, CRT/tanaka used media relations to position products with the consumer's lifestyle needs, not by segmenting them into traditional retail product categories that consumers don't understand. CRT/tanaka also recommended that Altec Lansing target more specific "untapped" markets within these categories, like women, Hispanic and Hip Hop/Urban.

 

Results

From January 2006 through June 2006, CRT/tanaka secured more than 144 million media impressions totaling more than $9.4 million in publicity value. Lifestyle messages appeared in media coverage regularly. High media activity was recorded for flagship products such as iM7 and iM9. CRT/tanaka also helped Altec Lansing successfully launch the more lifestyle-oriented brand at key trade shows such as CES and MacWorld. CRT/tanaka launched 10 products during this time period, helping Altec Lansing prioritize the publicity efforts for each product.