SONOS ~ LAUNCHPAD

01 — Project details

Product Launch of PLAY:1 & PLAYBAR

In 2012, Sonos was an obscure high-end audio brand with pockets of audiophiles as their narrow band of customers. The founders and product engineers were developing a system of speakers that could fill a location with music streamed from the developing road rally of streaming music providers like Pandora, Apple, and Spotify. The marketing team based in Europe had already proven that the speakers could sell, but the brand did not invested in a significant brand or product launch campaign in North America.

02 — My Role

I was hired in 2012 as the Global Digital Campaign Manager,

a pivotal role that taught me how to navigate and collaborate with global and regional teams while directing digital media, creative, and performance analytics across a roster of internal reports and external agencies. I also led up the 52-week "always-on" paid search, social, display, and affiliate marketing programs globally. I didn't sleep much during those years, but I advanced my compartmentalization skills to such a high level that it gave me confidence to eventually start my own eCommerce growth agency.

03 — Campaign Goals & Challenges

The brand needed to come out of the shadows while making the technology simple to understand. Keeping it simple was the mantra as we developed the brand and marketing communications plan. This messaging challenge proved to be as difficult as any of the myriad obstacles a new brand faces in an equally new product category.

Launching a brand with three product stories was also a breathtaking marketing challenge. The timing of each phase and corresponding message was critical for the campaign to break through. The golden metric was the number of households with at least one speaker. We then began tracking how many households had at least 1, but also 2, 3, or 3+ speakers as we continued an "always on" campaign via digital channels to press the concept of a sound system, rather than a single speaker.

01 — Project details

A global brand ID was forged.

This innovative product company became a global brand following this campaign, which connected with over 42 million people globally, surpassing the first-time customer target and CAC, repeat order target, and total household target.

Most importantly, the nebulous concept of a SYSTEM of custom-connected speakers burrowed into the minds of Music lovers, setting the brand apart from the saturated portable Bluetooth speaker category.

A brand impact study concluded that Sonos had become a top 5 speaker brand worldwide, and was in the top 3 for brands that make wifi speakers.

The campaign drove millions to the brand-owned eCOM DTC store and big-box retail partners.

The PLAY:1 sold out worldwide after the campaign, and the PLAYBAR hit the unit sales target six months later.

Success.