Brand bytes #4
An occasional series on brands we admire — and why
So here’s a confession.
I have 20-year-old, enormous breezeblock speakers at home. The kind of ‘dad’ audiophile ones that shrinking homes and technology have largely killed off. But they work, and they work well. In other words, I don’t have Sonos, or anything similar.
Then why the love? I admit, there’s a theoretical disconnect. But even without owning it, I truly admire Sonos for its category innovation — of course, there’s the product itself, but also the branding around it, from its superb activation, to brilliant logo, and plenty else besides.
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Let’s start with the name. It’s a wordsmith’s favourite — that rare thing, a palindrome, i.e. a name that’s spelled the same backwards as forwards. In terms of meaning, it’s not just redolent of sound, but of resonant, resounding sound. Brilliant. Simple. Iconic, even. Quite a good manifesto for a company trying to reinvent how we listen to music at home.
Then the logo: a designer’s favourite, since it seems to ‘move’ without actually being animated. Like the name, it suggests waves of sound. It moves when you do. It’s science. It’s art. It’s op-art. It’s groovy, wavy, futuristic.
And activation. That includes some still fairly few in number, but on-point stores that nail the kind of modern urban aesthetic that lovers of Kinfolk, Carhart and cool-as-cucumber fourth wave coffee shops feel at home in. And speaking of home, their new London store has glass-house ‘micro’ recreations of urban apartments, while gazing at old posters of The Face. Pretty cool.
Still, they could of course stretch it a bit more.
I’m surprised there isn’t a counter in store, pulling perfect, daringly light-roasted espressos. Give it time, and you could even see Sonos-branded beanies — as well as coffee beans. Why not. After all, they saw fit to stick a large pair of lips on the wall of Rich Mix, a celebrated East London arts venue, to advertise their voice activated service (image below)
That innovation is key to staying ahead in the arms race of ever-better home kit, which all the giants are getting in on — Apple’s HomeHub being but the latest example. But with the tech comes a pretty solid ‘hard’ product, as well as their original, category-breaking innovation: a speaker system that, unlike with Bluetooth, you can use to play different tracks in different rooms, wirelessly, over wifi — in a range spread over carefully targeted and calibrated sizes and pricepoints.
It may cause despair at company HQs to think of people admiring but not buying their brand. Indeed, it’s a phenomenon that rears its head when loved marques are threatened with closure. In my defence, my domestic set-up doesn’t justify multi-room, multi-playlist experiences, and on a more serious business note, while the hard sales numbers continue to stack up, the kind of great brand recognition and equity Sonos has built — and continues to build is a great intangible asset they can continue to bank for years. Including financially.
More power to their sonic elbows.
