Bose’s CMO on products, content and new ways to advertise audio

By Marty Swant

Yesterday, two major brands in audio had competing product debuts on separate coasts. In Cupertino, California, Apple debuted the second generation of the AirPods Pro. In New York City, Bose debuted its new QuietComfort EarBuds 2. And in the tale of two headphones, the latter is focused on being music-first rather than being distracted by also making other types of tech.

“When you look at the landscape, you have these incredible tech giants that are out there that are making TVs and laptops and phones and TV shows and music platforms and ad networks,” Bose Chief Marketing Officer Jim Mollica told Digiday. “We only create products and experiences for music.”

Mollica never mentioned Apple by name, but in an interview yesterday afternoon, he said the company has created a new platform for marketing the EarBuds II that aims to highlight the various ways music is integrated into people’s lives.

This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

When you talk about having a new brand platform, what does that entail?

While paid advertising still has its purpose throughout marketing, it cannot be the primary element of what you do, and how you communicate and engage consumers. We can all skip ads. You’re streaming, you’re DVRing — you’re skipping ads online, blocking them, with all of those other elements. That all leads to a much more difficult environment in which to connect so you need to find different, more authentic and organic ways to connect.

Many advertisers have had issues reaching audiences because of changes made by Apple and various new data privacy laws. Has that been a challenge for Bose, and is some of the content strategy been to compensate for that?

I look at this as more of like a publisher, and the filter with which we’re using for this is around music, and people that love music and sound. Last year, we had a campaign that we launched and there were probably 50 different segments that were behavioral and psychographic attached to it as opposed to traditional demos. And that’s really looking at people, what they think and how they behave. Those content tracks are helping to feed content that will be very different for you and different for me.

It’s a lot of work creating those types of content. We created a studio, partly internally, partly with some production companies different than agencies that were churning out probably 250 different pieces of content a week. That’s a different kind of model. It doesn’t mean everything’s going to get the polish of an above-the-line TV spot, but it can perform incredibly well for different audiences.

How much is paid media versus organic and how has ad spending evolved with various products and amid shifts in the economic outlook?

You want to have some level of consistent [ad] spend over a period of time. When you take long lulls — or even medium lulls — to get back to a relevant point takes a lot longer. And for a period of time, Bose …read more

Source:: Digiday