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1 Developed in conjunction with Colin Benjamin of The Horizon Network

THE BANG & OLUFSEN CASE STUDY

Using the Roy Morgan Values Segments 1 to re-position a brand

By Colin Benjamin, Michele Levine, Simon Pownall & Stuart Tolliday

D i s c o v e r

y o u r e d g e


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Bang & Olufsen brand repositioning case study

1 The Roy Morgan Values Segments were developed in conjunction with Colin Benjamin of The Horizon Network

Page 2 Roy Morgan Research 2005

THE BANG & OLUFSEN VALUE SEGMENTS CASE STUDY

This report examines in detail the application of the theory of Roy Morgan ValuesSegments 1 between 1994 and 1997 to affect a change in the target customers for aprestige brand in the home entertainment industry, and so increase turnover and

profits significantly above that which could be expected with a more of the sameapproach.

Background

Bang & Olufsen is one of the oldest manufacturers of home entertainment in the world.It is a Danish company and the products are often seen as synonymous with gooddesign of technology based products. The technology itself is rarely groundbreakingbut the quality of materials and the user interfaces are second-to-none. Being possiblythe only manufacturer that produces its own audio and video products under the oneroof has given Bang & Olufsen a huge advantage in the area of audio/videointegration.

The company itself is very small, employing fewer than 3000 people in its researchand development, manufacturing and marketing divisions. Most retailing of the productis carried out through an independent dealer network. The product range is small andthe prices are generally seen as high. The company has won innumerable designawards and its products appear in the industrial design collections of museums all overthe world. That it has managed to survive at all is testament to the clarity of the visionlaid down by its founders in 1925 that quality was to be the driving force behindeverything that the company does.

Bang & Olufsen (Australia) Pty Ltd is a wholly Australian owned and independentagent for Bang & Olufsen in Denmark and has been since the mid sixties. At the timeof this project the company was privately owned by Andrew Donaldson whose fatherGodfrey originally secured the agency. Andrew was the Managing Director. StuartTolliday was the Product and Training Manager. Donaldson had run the business forapproximately twenty years and Tolliday had been working with him for ten years.They worked closely together and ran the company with a small administration staff offive. In 1994 there were a total of eleven salespeople and five technicians to deal withservice and installations.

Through a series of events over a ten year period the company had gravitated from animport/wholesaler/retailer to an import/retailer and for the previous five years had

owned the entire retail distribution of five showrooms within Australia. This created avery close relationship with the end consumer, and a high level of control of the retailexperience. In moving from a multi brand environment to pure Bang & Olufsenshowrooms, Donaldson had had many disagreements with Bang & Olufsensmanagement in Denmark who at that time were convinced that a multi brandenvironment was the best way to sell their product.

Donaldsons belief in the single brand showroom for a prestige product proved to bevery far sighted and his persistence in creating it for Australia paid off. Taking his leadfrom the brand values, quality had been a very important aspect of everything he didand the company was well respected by both staff and customers for that. EventuallyBang & Olufsen also recognised the value in what they were doing and a number of

people came to Australia to examine Donaldsons model. Their findings became thebasis for a complete change of face in retail policy for Bang & Olufsen world wide.


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So despite a relatively low turnover, the Australian operation had a disproportionatedegree of credibility in the Bang & Olufsen organisation.

The impetus for change

In some ways the products are too good. The service backup is second to none withregard to spare parts availability, and customers fall in love with their products to thepoint that they will spend hundreds of dollars repairing fifteen and twenty year oldequipment rather than replace it. The average time between purchases was overseven years, which meant that repeat business was hard to come by. The business inAustralia was small, successful and profitable, with steady but unspectacular growth.

By 1993, Bang & Olufsen in Denmark had just completed a radical restructure, and thecompany, under a new young and aggressive management team was in the processof making a remarkable turn around from the brink of disaster. Following the massiverestructuring program, Bang & Olufsen was looking for significant growth opportunities.

The main European markets were well established and it was assumed that there waslimited opportunity for double digit growth, therefore it was decided to focus on theagency-run markets and push some serious expansion into the Asian region.

There had long been a belief held by Bang & Olufsen Denmark (typical of manyEuropean based companies) that a country as large as Australia needed far widercoverage than just the main capital cities. In Denmark, a country of five million people,there were over 100 B&O dealers, in fact one in almost every town, so they could notsee why at least the top 50 towns and cities in Australia should not have a B&O dealer.This clearly was not, and never would be a practical solution, but with Holland, acountry with a similar population to Australia, having over 8 times the turnover, theyknew they had to look for more than just generic growth.

While it is usually true that your existing customers are your best and the most costeffective to work with, they would not provide the growth that both B&O in Australiaand B&O in Denmark were looking for. It seemed that the answer to the desire forgrowth lay not so much in increasing distribution but in finding a bigger group ofprospects. That would then drive a demand for more outlets.

They were aware of a group of people who (they felt) should have been customers,based on the car they drove, the places they lived, their childrens private education,holidays etc. but werent. Donaldson and Tolliday would meet them socially or inbusiness situations and were amazed that they simply didnt considerBang & Olufsen for themselves. If these people knew the brand at all they generallyassumed it was the best, but they werent interested in owning it.

The question was Why werent they buying?. Through Andrew Donaldsonsmembership of TEC (an association for Managing Directors running their ownbusiness) he met Colin Benjamin from The Horizon Network late in 1993. Benjaminpresented some of his work done in association with Roy Morgan Research on ValueSegments 1. He was able to show how Values had been used with the launch of theLexus car in Australia and he was keen to find a second case study.

It was as though someone had turned on the light as Benjamin described the variousmindset characteristics. They could not only see friends and relatives, but also their

customers and much more importantly, the people they thought should be customersbut werent. It appeared that the reason may have been the different Mindsets heldby these people.


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The possibility that a market for the product existed that they werent addressing was avery inviting one but seemed rather difficult to believe. Donaldson decided toundertake some basic research to confirm/determine who their customers were. Theoutcome of this research was to impact every aspect of the business.

Analysis of existing customers .

Being far from convinced that there was any veracity to the whole Value Segments 1 theory, it seemed logical to start by looking at who the customers were, usingtraditional demographics. The intention was to find out where their customers lived, ifthat related to their level of expenditure and how that overlayed with where the largestpotential disposable income lay. They were introduced to Simon Pownall of Centarwho was to provide them initially with a geographical picture of their current database,and if the data was robust enough, an idea if the customers were skewed to anyparticular Value Segment. Normally the skew could be established by using traditional

face to face interview techniques, however B&O knew that its customers would beextremely difficult persuade to participate in an interview process. There was also theoverriding confidentiality issue Donaldson quite rightly refused to compromise on.

Initially B&O thought they had a good database the sales people had written adetailed sales docket for every sale for over ten years. The details existed on a heavilycustomised Tracker CRM database that was automatically updated by the financialsystem, and the salespeople used it on a daily basis. They placed a very high value oncustomer records and their commitment to the confidentiality of that information. Bang& Olufsen customer details had never been provided to any outside party before andthey did all their mail outs internally where manual sorting was the order of the day.They did not mail to customers very frequently usually about once a year to advise ofa Sale. The primary use of the database was related to sales prospects.

However to do any mapping they clearly had to hand the data to an outside party. Along time was spent trying to get around this. The compromise reached to protect theconfidentiality of the database was that they would not supply customers names orstreet address but only post-codes and purchase history. This was not what Centarwanted as Pownall believed that it was necessary to work at a CCD level (typically aCCD has 250 homes, whilst a postcode can have as many as 10,000 homes). Therewas much debate about the usefulness of the information they were prepared toprovide but B&O were determined that they would not risk any compromising of thesecurity of the information held on individual customers. This served to raise theawareness of everyone involved in the project of B&Os attitude towards not just theircustomers privacy, but business in general. It also provided challenges in analysisbecause whilst mapping at postcode level to investigate demographic skews is quitestraightforward, using a geographic tool to track mindsets requires a much more subtleinvestigative technique because the geographic skew by Values can vary quitedramatically within a postcode.

Because Australia is largely a classless society (in comparison to other westerncountries) the large socioeconomic boundaries between say ghettoes and wealthyenclaves simply dont demarcate geographically to the same extent as overseassocieties.

The first thing discovered was that the data base was actually not as useable as theyhad thought. It consisted of a little under ten thousand records and a complete list ofproducts purchased by date and price paid. Some records were over ten years old.


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However there were many duplications, some customers having four or more separateentries, addresses were incomplete, postcodes were missing or wrong, suburbs werespelt incorrectly, information was in the wrong place or on the wrong line, (especiallywith apartments), there was no consistency in the use of capital letters, etc. There wasno way of easily identifying the total spend of many customers who had made multiplepurchases or even to identify the actual number of individual customers.

They also found that many of the addresses provided were business addresses andnot the delivery address. This would skew the picture of where their customers lived, inmost cities giving an abnormally high inner city segment.

They had to begin with a major cleanup, initially having the salespeople identify asmany duplications and errors as possible from print-outs of their customers details. Aperson was employed for several months to work through the data base, wherenecessary, going back to the original handwritten sales dockets, using the phonedirectories, and even calling customers (where they could find a phone number) tovalidate delivery address details. The receptionist also spent many weeks correcting

and validating addresses by calling customers. While there are companies who offersuch services, as already stated, B&O were unwilling to let anyone else have theircustomers details and further felt that it was unacceptable for anyone other than aperson from within the company contact them.

Eventually Centar was given a relatively clean database consisting of approximatelythree thousand five hundred (nameless) customers identified by Postcode and spend.There were five showrooms in Australia at the beginning of 1994, in Sydney,Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and so it was decided to map for the greatermetropolitan areas for each city.

Findings

Centar created a series of colour maps showing the customers by spend as well asdensity. The maps showed number of accounts by postcode, total dollars by postcodeand average dollars by postcode. Centar also attempted to map the number ofcustomers as a percentage of the population by postcode, but the percentages weretoo small to be of any significance.


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Centar then overlayed the various MindSet maps for each city against customernumber, customer spend and average spend and started to look for correlations.

From the outset, the visualisation clearly showed a Mindset skew, and to theexperienced geographic eye the relationship was clear. However, the question reallywas how significant were the results? Were the skews strong enough to warrant awhole change in strategy especially when the original maps seemed almost counterintuitive to B&O at first glance.

For example, using traditional statistical regression methodologies did not reveal muchbecause of the relative thinness of the data at small areas of geography.

Pownall had to try a number of techniques that a purist modelling approach wouldreject. The issue seemed to be that there were many postcodes with data, but that thebecause much of the data was thin it seemed to be driving the results. The data tailwas wagging the dog.

So Centar found it had to make many runs using a combination of techniques toensure the results where significant without compromising the methodology. Forexample, they created a rank ordering of postcodes by each possible combination ofdata sets customer numbers, household penetration, sales volumes, productvolumes.

Australia had 2,385 postcodes for which Centar had detailed census information andthe Roy Morgan geographic clustering system which effectively allowed modelledmarket research data including the propensity for each postcode to contain varyingconcentrations of each of the ten Values segments.

Because of the wide geographic spread of B&O customers, many postodes only

contained one customer record while they could see that these postcodes werecontributing to the view, statiscally, it was difficult to prove. For example, one customerin each of the postcodes of Claremont, (Perth), South Yarra (Melbourne) Rose Bay(Sydney) in itself appears meaningless until you realise each of these suburbs ispractically identical from a Mindset perspective yet a postcode containing 10customer records may override this subtle pattern.

It soon became apparent pushing all the data into traditional statistical models(available at the time) was overfeeding the model. So Pownall went back to his triedand trusted method of creating giant paper spreadsheets to literally examine the datapostcode by postcode.

Each postcode was rank ordered by:

Raw customer numbersRaw dollar sales dataDollars per customerCustomers as a percentage of the populationCustomers as a percentage of households

These spreadsheets allowed them to see the differences between each of thepostcodes and to allow them to legitimately cull data from the analysis. For example,in Melbourne, there appeared to be an unnaturally large spike of customers. Uponfurther investigation two reasons for this appeared. Firstly, B&O used to have a salesoutlet in the city clearly this generated sales within the CBD precinct above andbeyond population levels.


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The second reason was what was colloquially referred to as the Harley Davidsonfactor. In the early nineties, Harley Davidsons became extremely popular with over40s businessmen looking to recapture their youth particularly in self made men.When Centar mapped motorcycle registrations they observed the same spike butonly for Harley Davidson or other exotic marques such as Ducati and Moto Guzzi - andthe owners tended to register their motorcycles through their business (It is possiblethat a great many Harleys were actually listed as courier vehicles on the books of thebusinessmen!)

As amusing as this was, it was one of the reasons to look at what should be rejectedfrom the analysis because they were sure there were other anomalies the data wasreal, but could have been disguising the underlaying pattern.

By manually observing differences in the rank order of postcodes they began to seethose postcodes which held during the rank order process in other words somepostcodes continually held in the top rank ordering whichever way the data was cut.

This gave a straight ordinal dataset on which to then base the correlations on, and bycomparing the results between the various runs they were able to see where the datawas creating noise and where patterns where beginning to develop. This allowedCentar to see where the data was giving consistent results irrespective of whichcorrelation model was being used versus the differences.

It also produced surprising results many inner city postcodes that, as a whole,contained low income, disadvantaged populations featured amongst the highest rankorders. On closer examination, these postcodes tended to contain urbandevelopments that governments had created in the sixties to house lower incomefamilies. As a result, there were literally millionaires living across the road from theunemployed. From a data perspective these postcodes mindset and demographic

profile where dominated by the disadvantaged residents, yet it was the much smaller(in numbers) wealthier residents that had to be the B&O buyers.

The initial results proved surprising. There was an amazing correlation between B&Ocustomers and the Socially Aware 1 and the Young Optimism 1 segments. However thealignment with the bigger and higher potential spending Visible Achievement 1 segmentwas less defined.

At that time B&O believed that their customers were mainly older and they wereconcerned that the maps were wrong. Were there actually so many youngercustomers? All the usual suspects in terms of wealthy postcodes were evident butwhat seemed strange was the incidence of postcodes that would not spring to mind aswealthy clearly something more that a simple wealth construct was driving the B&Ocustomer profile. A little more research of their own, where the sales people wereasked to estimate the age of each customer, showed that in fact the customersspanned a much wider age group than had been assumed.

Roy Morgan Research was contracted to carry out a brand awareness study using theMorgan Omnibus, and they tested for both aided and unaided awareness as well asbrand preference and intention to purchase. The awareness was predictably low, butcompared with a number of brands which were considered competition at that time, itwas significantly higher. When viewed across Value Segments 1, the correlation withthe Centar customer mapping research was very clear.

The Visible Achievement 1 segment represented some 14% of the Australianpopulation (compared with the Socially Aware 1 at only 10%) and yet their awareness of


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Bang & Olufsen was less than half that of the SA group. It seemed that they just hadntregistered the B&O advertising as being relevant to them.

Unfortunately YOs usually do not have the spending capacity of the VA or SAsegments to purchase Bang & Olufsen products. While the number of YO customerswas similar to the number of SA customers, the average spend of the YOs wasnoticeably lower. And while the proportion of VA was significantly lower than both YOand SA, the yield was higher, which reinforced the decision to target this market.

The following chart shows the results of mapping the Bang & Olufsen customersacross the Value Segments 1 and the correlation with Young Optimism 1 and SociallyAware 1 is obvious, as is the relatively poor representation of the Visible Achievement 1 segment. There was also a surprisingly negative result for Conventional Family Life 1.This was surprising because families were assumed to be the greatest consumers ofhome entertainment and Bang & Olufsen simply wasnt there.

A detailed examination of Bang & Olufsen advertising from 1983 to 1993 gave someinsight as to why the customer group looked the way it did.

The basis of being able to link a style of advertising to a Mindset is through the linkbetween a battery of attitudinal attributes tracked by Values segments. Particular

Values Segments are quite clear on their preferences with regard to how they processmessages. Each advertisement B&O produced was matched to how each valuesegment might perceive (or even notice) a certain style of advertisement.

For example, in most advertisements the photography was very cold and in mostcases pure product. It put the brand on a pedestal which particularly appealed to theYoung Optimism 1 segment, and it accentuated the design element which made itattractive to the Socially Aware 1.

The headlines were self congratulatory which provided an element of exclusivity sodesired by the Socially Aware 1. The smugness was very appealing to the YoungOptimism 1 group. There then followed many lines of copy extolling the capabilities of

the product and providing the Socially Awares1

much needed information andeventually justification for the potential purchase.


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There was no mention or suggestion of family, home or success and the images madesure that a Visible Achievement 1 mindset would never see the ad as being relevant tothem, and hence the copy and even the brand would remain unnoticed.

B&O had been running a far more targeted campaign than they realised. In many ways,that alone was testimony to the power of Values Segments 1.

A typical Bang & Olufsen double page ad from 1992

Bang & Olufsen products have been very much positioned as a Socially Aware 1 product through years of catalogues and the companys own advertising, and hencethe showrooms also reflected that look a European museum or art gallery style. So itwas all very consistent.By now, consistent evidence was also building through four independent processes:

MappingB&O s own age analysisRoy Morgans omnibus dataAdvertising style analysis


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Decision to change approach

Donaldson and Tolliday recognised that in Europe there was a big Socially Aware 1 market and consequently the product may well have still had significant potential there.However even prior to their exposure to Values, they had felt that the cultural

differences between the old world and the new were responsible for the different levelof discretionary spending on design and the arts. The problem was that in Australia theculturally sophisticated or what they came to know as the Socially Aware 1 market, wasand still is quite small in numbers. B&O was reasonably represented in that area andso if they continued down the SA path, the prospects for dramatic growth were verylimited. Serious pressure for growth from the Bang & Olufsen management inDenmark made that unacceptable.

While growing the distribution would have satisfied the Danes in the short term, therewas little reason to believe that alone would deliver the increased turnover or profitrequired by all stakeholders. In fact on a number of occasions in the past additionalshowrooms had been opened and closed in both Melbourne and Sydney with minimal

impact on the total turnover. However, if they could somehow gain a foothold in theVisible Achievement 1 segment of the market, then some real opportunities to grow thedemand existed and that in turn would fuel the distribution growth.

Colin Benjamin maintained that it was possible to shift the public perception of thebrand in this direction, provided they were prepared to make a total commitment to theprocess. The emphasis was on the word total. He continually referred to the work hedid with Lexus as evidence that Value Segments 1 worked. Donaldson & Tollidayvisited the Lexus showrooms and examined what they had done to position the brandso far away from Toyota. It was soon realised that to be successful would require farmore than just a new advertising campaign.

Certainly one important part was to change the focus of the print advertising, which inBang & Olufsens case was the window through which most consumers would initiallycontact the brand. But the critical and much more difficult task was to ensure that thepromise made by these new advertisements was delivered by the retail side of thebusiness.

This entails every aspect of the customer experience from the street presence to theshowroom fit-out, the style, dress and especially the attitudes of the salespeople, andthe entire after-sales service offering. The second part of this is obviously andunquestionably the most difficult for any organisation to achieve.

A simple SWOT analysis provides a snapshot of the position of Bang & Olufsen inAustralia in 1994:

Strengths .

The image of the brand was very strong amongst the existing customergroup. The quality of the showroom fit-outs was a considerable stepabove every other player in the industry. The Camberwell showroomhad been the first in the world to use the total Bang & Olufsen designedand built Accenta display system. Its success both as an identity(branding) exercise and as a practical display system which hid theincreasing number of cables ensured that it was rolled out to all

showrooms over a short period.


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There were many customised systems in place and a fully documentedoperations manual was the basis for all procedures.

There was a computerised prospect database that was constantly beinganalysed for sales opportunities via a structured activity program that

was monitored from the Melbourne head office. A lot was known aboutpotential business opportunities both in terms of timing, product anddollar value.

Donaldson had invested heavily in the frontline people. They dressedprofessionally and in fact were more professional than most. They wererarely sourced from the trade (except for the technicians) and acomprehensive training program was a very important part of theirrecruitment. They were dedicated and passionate about the brand andthere was a strong team culture. This was actively promoted andreinforced over many years through regular visits by both Donaldson &Tolliday to all stores and at a minimum, twice yearly whole-company

training meetings held in Melbourne. These were very effective inovercoming the feeling of isolation for the non Melbourne staff, giventhat most showrooms only had two employees. The salespeople werepaid a salary with no commission.

They had worked with Ian Ross from Ross Bing Swallow (now TheRoss Partnership) for over ten years with a short break, having returnedto Ian one year prior. His expertise in dealing with premium brands(Bang & Olufsen and Porsche) was of great value, and having brieflyexperimented (with disastrous results) with one of the big agencies,Donaldson determined that the solution lay in educating the relevantpeople in the existing organisation to understand the changes that werebeing made.

Based on the mapping Centar had done, they were reasonably happywith the location of the five showrooms; B&O had been there for manyyears and, in most cases, the company also owned the property or hadlong leases so it was decided to retain the existing locations and add innew locations as required.

Weaknesses

Clearly the range and style of the product was completely beyond B&O

Australias control. Bang & Olufsen products are designed and made inDenmark. The only variations in the products are to accommodate localpower or statutory authority requirements.

For many years they had had a strict No Discount pricing policy withan occasional special offer on a particular product and they did not wantto move away from that. Given the attitude of the Visible Achievementmindset to deals and discounts, this could have proven to be a problem.

Donaldson decided that he would not significantly increase the mediaspend. This was partially due to normal budgetary constraints butequally it was to provide a constant for the purpose of the test. The

advertising budget would obviously have to increase to cover the cost ofthe more expensive local creative, but the actual media spend wouldremain, initially at least, as for the previous year. Changing from double


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page ads to single pages would however allow for an increase infrequency

Opportunities

While Bang & Olufsen annually created a world wide print advertisingcampaign, Donaldson had for many years been able to argue a case forlocally created ads based on the very low awareness compared toEurope, and now he had the added ammunition of the aforementionedresearch.

The penalty was that to create these new ads locally they would haveto bear all the associated costs, which were not insubstantial. They hadpreviously used photography supplied by Denmark and rarely had toshoot locally; it was just the cost of the creative.

Despite the intention to maintain the total media spend, the media

selection was on the table. They wanted to focus the campaign on themost cost effective media for reaching the Visible Achievement 1 mindset reader. They decided to shift from a predominantly businessmagazine focus to more leisure and lifestyle. While the businessmagazines were certainly read by the target audience, they wereusually in business mode, skimming for business related information.Advertising for non business related products or services were lesslikely to be noticed or recalled by the VA.

Threats

The home entertainment industry world wide was undergoing a hugerevolution with the imminent introduction of digital television and DVD.Bang & Olufsen was traditionally very slow in bringing new technologythat was not their own on to the market. Following a disastrous decision(in hindsight) to back the Phillips V2000 home video system againstVHS and Beta, they determined not to invest in new technologies againuntil there was a clear market acceptance, preferring to wait for secondor even third generation product to ensure the stability and viability ofthe new product.

This meant in reality that Bang & Olufsen was often two or more yearsbehind the first introduction of a new technology. While the traditionalB&O customers respected and even appreciated this cautious approach,there was no way of knowing if this would also apply to the new VisibleAchievement 1 segment being targeted, or how quickly B&O wouldrespond to future developments. Their reactions naturally were basedon demand in their biggest market, Europe, whereas Australia oftenfollows the US, well in front of Europe in adopting new technology.

A number of brands, especially Loewe, Bose and Nakamichi, hadrecognised the potential of design oriented home entertainmentsystems. While the majority of the market kept producing black boxesand technocrat targeted advertising, the fore-mentioned companieswere certainly looking to carve out a share of the design conscious

consumer market, a segment Bang & Olufsen had owned almostexclusively for over forty years.


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Steps to change

Many of the changes referred to here happened simultaneously and it took about sixmonths before the first of the new ads appeared in print. By then B&O had to ensurethat the organisation was ready to handle at all levels the new type of buyer they were

hoping to attract.Educate the Advertising AgencyIt was determined that it was necessary for all the people at the agency whowere directly involved with the B&O account to understand what they wereattempting to achieve. These were the Principal who was the account manager,his business partner at the time who was also the Creative Director, the copywriter and the Media Buyer. Early in 1994 there were two half day meetingswith them and Colin Benjamin to present Values Segments 1 and then discusshow the brand was to be repositioned to make it relevant to the VisibleAchievement 1 segment of the market. There was a high level of scepticismfrom the agency.

The first ads had to be noticeably different to anything that had run before ifthey were to gain the attention of the VA segment. It took a while for everyoneto understand exactly what they should look like. In fact the creative peoplehad a very fixed view of how a Bang & Olufsen advertisement should look.They believed that they were better equipped to design the ad than eitherSimon Pownall or Colin Benjamin, both of whom were consulted withextensively, somewhat to the agencys chagrin.

Donaldson & Tolliday also had ongoing arguments with Benjamin, not so muchover the look of the advertising, but over the amount of copy. They were verynervous about removing the majority of the text but Benjamin persuaded themthat too much copy would turn off the very people they were aiming for.

Initially the agency mis-interpreted the brief. This came from amisunderstanding of the attitude of a VA mindset to status and brands. The firstproposals were to leverage off an existing prestige brand. (Brand bribing)

The first two proposals assumed (wrongly) that leveraging off another prestige brand would appeal to the target audience


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They felt that this approach weakened the B&O brand but, more importantly, itdid not correctly interpret the brief.

It was determined that due to the low brand awareness a unique positioningstatement was needed to clarify the offer. In the past, Bang & Olufsen hadused several of these UPS including in the 70s for those who discuss tasteand quality before price (very SA). In many ways the Australian distributionwas still living this view.

The goal was to find a simple tag or by-line that would cement the position ofthe brand as the ultimate symbol of achievement. Ones success could not beconsidered complete without Bang & Olufsen. Many statements attesting to thequality were considered but they all lacked authority or left a question in themind of the reader of really?

Eg Sharp used the tag Simply the Best but it is highly doubtful if anyone

actually believed this statement, in the same way as the Fresh Meat sign in abutchers window is unlikely to be taken as a fact. After all what else would oneexpect them to claim?

After much consideration, and innumerable suggestions by all concerned withthe project, Benjamin proposed Of course. This achieved all of the criteria. Itwas short; it was a statement, and its meaning was clear, as it implied thatthere was no suitable alternative. It also implied general acceptance andapproval which was going to be very important to the new VA audience, asthey are not trail blazers when it comes to status symbols.

After trying a number of ways of combining the words with the logo they

finalised on it being handwritten in a flowing script under the brand name,because this gave it more of a recommendation status as opposed to acorporate statement.

The final look of the new Brand sign-off

Meanwhile, by April 1994, following further input from Benjamin redefining theVisible Achievement 1 mindset and the drivers associated with that group, theagency had developed a second concept. This focussed on the type of peoplea VA may aspire to be and was a variation on the advertising style Rolex hadused successfully for some years.

It needs to be realised that most creative directors, having being given a brief,generally do not like being directed themselves. Hence criticism of their workbased on quite revolutionary theory is not easily accepted. It is a tribute to Rossand his Creative Directors, Phil Kinninamoth and later Meg Sorrensen at The


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Ross Partnership, that they accepted the level of interference whichcharacterised the creation of the campaign.

The agencys second attempt, using an endorsement strategy did not take into account the low brand awareness

Bang & Olufsen had a corporate policy which did not permit endorsement styleadvertising. And Benjamin was adamant that it was too big a step away fromwhere they had been. There was far too low brand awareness for such a styleof advertising to work. The ads had to provide a message of personal success,and family. The product had to be seen as a natural way of completing a homeenvironment. And there had to be some copy, inviting participation. The VAsegment needs to establish a relationship before doing business, and theadvertising needed to provide an invitation to participate.

The next proposal in May 1994 involved using existing photography from Bang& Olufsen (which certainly would have reduced the cost of the campaign).

The third attempt was too European and staged to be convincing to a local audience


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These were getting closer but it was decided that the interiors must look moreAustralian and less European, and preferably there needed to be an SA edgeso as not to completely alienate the SA customers.

However the look of the ad was now quite close to what they were aiming forand the task was to find a way of showing the product so that it wouldnt be lostin a busy photograph. The agency went back to the sketch book to developthe idea to a workable format.

From the previous idea the creative team made a series of sketches to define the

layout

The positioning of the logo and signoff was decided and a mock-up created

The sketches proceeded to mock-ups, with interiors sourced from home makerand design magazines. Because they wanted the purchase of the product to beseen as an investment for the family there was some debate over whether achild should be in the picture.


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The final decision was that evidence of teenage children could work but thechild, especially a young one, would detract from the message. A dog wassubstituted for the child. The target audience was not likely to be consideringhome entertainment while focussing on very young children.

Having decided that the overall look was now right, the task was to find alocation that approximated the mock-up and a professional location finder wasgiven the brief. The photograph was shot in August 1994, seven months afterthe initial briefing.

A sunny, renovated kitchen was chosen as the location, the colours being asfar as possible from the cool blues and pristine whites of the previouscampaigns. Because the picture was to be a full bleed to the edge of the page,a high and light coloured ceiling was required. This would give added impactand space to the interior and allow the brand to stand out in the top right cornerof the page. A great deal of time was spent on choosing the right models,clothes and jewellery.

The dog was carefully cast. The breed was important. They chose a Labrador,a VA pet a significant, safe, clean dog which would share all the familyenvironments; home, the farm, the beach etc. (Having decided to include a dogplaced an extra challenge for the location finder as obviously the owners had tobe willing to allow a dog indoors.) The picture was to be a snapshot of a quietmoment in this successful couples life.

The main product was very prominent in the foreground because it wasimportant that it could be seen as a noticeable addition to the room. VAswanted to be reassured that their friends would notice the new system. Theloudspeakers were chosen to provide a sense of size and perspective

Meanwhile the copy was being composed. Itbegins with a statement in bold type Beyondmere achievement there is always Bang &Olufsen Implying that you may well besuccessful but there is actually another step onthe ladder and that step is owning B&O. Thiswas followed by Sound systems that blendeffortlessly with the finest home, yet unusualenough to always provoke comment. I.e. whilethey would work in with any dcor they were notgoing to disappear. Your friends will see whatyou have. This also took a direct swipe at thein-wall and in-ceiling speaker systems oftenchosen for the very reason that they werevirtually invisible.

Next were two product sentences, the first toexplain what the system comprised, and thesecond a reference to patented technology toexplain/justify the relatively compact size of theloudspeakers. The tone of both is very much ofcourse i.e. take the design and add some

special technology and there you have it, the worlds finest sound system. Byplacing the name separately as a statement it also implies of course itsBang & Olufsen.


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Finally there is a challenge. If you demand the best for your home and yourfamily, you owe it to yourself to attend a personalised presentation. This is notsomething selfish, it says, but something for your home and your family thetwo most important things in your life - and you would be letting them andyourself down if you didnt look into it further.

And they were offering a personalised presentation, not just a demonstration.The ad carried a 1-800 number with a tailored message on an answeringmachine operating outside normal office business hours. The use of a callcentre was debated but it was felt that anyone calling would expect to speak tosomeone from B&O and may want more than to just make an appointment.

The call to action was to make an appointment to see and hear the Bang &Olufsen difference. This was again a very conscious choice of words. Many ofthe target audience did not see themselves as audio buffs and felt that thequality may be wasted on them. The ad had to establish that there was anoticeable difference and all they wanted was for people to hear it for

themselves. This was a far less threatening challenge.

The Good Weekend double page launch version of the first of the new style ad

The first appearance of the new print advertisement had to be a radicaldeparture from what had gone before to grab the attention of a new audience.It was produced in a double page version for the initial insertion on October 81994 in the 10 th Anniversary edition of the Age/Sydney Morning Herald GoodWeekend magazine, which Roy Morgan data had identified as having a highVA/SA readership.

It was the first time Bang & Olufsen had used this magazine, although the hostpapers (The Age & The Sydney Morning Herald) had been the mainstay of itsadvertising presence in Melbourne and Sydney for many years.


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The left page was almost entirely white space but it contained in bold type Aninvitation to experience the Bang & Olufsen difference and meet the newOuverture Sound System at one of our showrooms. This wouldnt be a normalshopping expedition, but one would be responding to an invitation to meet anew product. It is fair to say that Donaldson and Tolliday were sceptical aboutthe wording of this but it proved to have been read, as shoppers actually saidthey had come to meet this new sound system.

The single page version of the first of the new look advertisements was created to enable a higher frequency without increasing the overall media spend


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The work with the salespeople was at many levels and required a great deal ofpersistence. This was about changing the selling style of people who had beenworking successfully in the industry for over ten years in some cases. Theyneeded to be convinced that the changes were necessary and would prove tobe more effective than their existing style.

Donaldson Tolliday and Benjamin role-played a number of scenarios to enablethe salespeople to see and then try out new approaches to creating arelationship with their prospects.

They discussed the need to be able to talk about the business world and beaware of the happenings in the corporate sector. To help this they sent everyshowroom the Bulletin and BRW magazines (both of which still carried someBang & Olufsen advertising) and encouraged the salespeople to read them sothey could keep up to date with current business news and have something totalk about to their new customers.

They discussed the triggers that would help to identify the type of people whowalked into the showroom or made a phone enquiry. They pointed out that aVA will not dress up on the weekend to go shopping but that in no waydiminishes either their spending power or their expectation of the way thesalespeople should dress. They confirmed their dress code which was to lookless like salespeople and more like business people. And most importantly,they showed them how to be a person who could make decisions, anddeveloped a strategy for dealing with discount requests, keeping in mind theneed for people with a Visible Achievement 1 mindset to feel that they are ableto negotiate a deal. This included no-charge consulting in the home, andoccasionally subsidised cabling for installations. However above all, the level ofpersonalised service had to be exceptional.

In comparison to Levines rational talk on the outcomes of the surveys andother work that Roy Morgan Research had done, there was a fairly high level ofshock value in Benjamins presentation and the staff was continually checkingto see if Donaldson and Tolliday were really committed to this crazy mansideas. The general response was a high level of scepticism from the salespeople but a degree of curiosity because some of the observations made byboth Benjamin and Levine did seem to them to make sense. This seminar wasfollowed up with showroom visits by both Donaldson and Tolliday to ensure thatthe goal and the purpose of the changes were understood and resolve anyoutstanding issues.

They also instigated a weekly incentive for the sales teams based onshowroom performance to budget. The rewards were bottles of wine whichproved to be a great incentive. The salespeople quickly became educated winedrinkers! The business week finished at close of trade on a Thursday and itproved to be very important when a bonus was earned, to get the winedelivered before the weekend. It is difficult to believe how powerful an incentivethe wine turned out to be but it far eclipsed its monetary value.

The team at the Horizon Network kept a close check on what was happening atthe coal face by paying regular surprise visits to all the showrooms; Benjaminwould call with very detailed reports of what he or one of his team hadobserved. This was both useful and frustrating but it certainly added to thefocus on changing the salespeoples ways of dealing with customers.


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This was not simple mystery shopping. Various researchers would visit andclosely observe how the salespeople were responding to each customer. Anumber of the Horizon Network people bought product and then reported fullyon the entire experience including the installation and follow up. Everyone whowas involved from the consulting side developed a real ownership of the projectas they saw the ideas being put into practice.

It was critical that new types of customers were being recognised by the salesteam and not dismissed or ignored. Donaldson and Tolliday learnt to deal withwell meaning but misguided advice, and extract the valuable input, as theysoon realised that they were still the experts in the areas of consumertechnologies and the practicalities of actual high end retailing.

About six months after the launch of the new campaign, another whole-company seminar was held and some time was spent discussing the results todate and re-enforcing the value segments message. Benjamin again presentedand this time actively challenged many of the salespeople over some of the

Horizon Network team experiences. The people from The Horizon Network hadmade regular visits to all showrooms and provided very detailed reports of theirobservations. As might be expected, the sales people were very defensive butthe degree of detail provided made it hard to deny the accusations.

As can be imagined, this had a much less positive impact and it was decidedthat in future all the training and coaching had to come from the company. Inthis way the company management would be seen as the driving force ratherthan some outsider. The Horizon Networks regular visits and reports continued.

The Results

The first ad was an immediate success. Except for Good Weekend Magazine, it ran asa full page ad in the same magazines they had used before and with a similarfrequency. A new type of customer began visiting the showrooms, and one of therepeated comments made by these people was I see that you have startedadvertising. Clearly they had been completely unaware of the previous insertions.

While there was an increase in store traffic, it was not huge. But the salespeople couldsee sales coming from new areas in all states. They reported a noticeable change inthe mix of customers and, most importantly, the yield increased.

Having made significant impact with the first ad they wanted to follow up withsomething which was not quite as radical. The intention was to very slowly move backto a position which would keep the VA segment involved but not totally alienate theirtraditional market of the SA/YOs which the first ad certainly had done. Many of theexisting customers had asked B&O what they thought they were doing and seriouslyquestioned this new direction.

The launch of the Avant television, a fully integrated 28 widescreen television withvideo recorder at $15,000, occurred in mid 1995. The Avant was a piece of furniture,and all the technology, including the video recorder, was hidden. It was determinedthat the ad needed to be more targeted at the VA segment. The VA family usestelevision much more than the SAs. It is almost always on, even if not being watched,and the price could be justified as a reward for the family, compensation for all the time


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spent at work etc. They felt that SAs would see it as too extravagant for a television,especially one of that screen size.

Because of the price point, the location shifted to an obviously more expensive, brandnew house (no art on the walls yet), a richer interior and a lounge room setting.

The first proposal for the Visible Achievement focussed Avant ad (above) and the final ad (right)

The people and the product were more prominent and again a great deal of care wastaken with their dress, to ensure that it was in keeping with the environment. Thewomans prominent crown brooch indicated a slight conservatism and the man couldhave been younger than her. A dog was included but this time it was a goldenretriever, a slightly more exclusive breed.

B&O knew this ad would really alienate thetraditional SA customer but they were not theprimary target for the product. However a black &white press ad was also produced to address thetraditional SA / YO market and it was run on thefront page of the daily press in Sydney, Melbourne,Brisbane and Adelaide and in the Early GeneralNews in Perth. The strategy worked. Despite theprice and the fact that there was no widescreenprogramming expected for five years, the televisionwas a spectacular success. The advertising alsoappealed to the Traditional Family Life 1 segmentwho could easily project themselves into thepictured environment and saw it as a furnishingsolution. Due to its price, it obviously had a positiveeffect on the yield.

The SA/YO oriented press ad (approx 16cm x 4 columns) for the Avant launch


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In October 1995 the third ad in the series wasproduced. It was for a modular television/videosystem with a price point starting at less thanone third the Avant.An apartment setting was chosen and aslightly trendier and noticeably younger couple.The art on the wall and the Mexican rugindicated travel and cultural awareness. Thiswas aimed at bringing back the SA and YOsegments of the market and so the dog had tobe dispensed with. A more intimate level ofdomesticity was provided by a carefullychosen bottle of chardonnay. The modelsclothes and hairstyle were also carefullyselected While the furniture was still VA instyle, the fabric was not; the setting was aimedat re-admitting the YO/SA segments to the

brand.The third ad in the new series was aimed at a broader audience

There were increasing problems encountered with using people in the advertising,because it immediately generated a presumption of what the Bang & Olufsen customershould look like both with the market and amongst the sales staff. Regardless of themodels chosen, and their clothes, they couldnt help but create stereotypes, whichamongst other things, detracted from the message.

In April 1996, Meg Sorensen, the newly arrived creative director at the advertisingagency then provided an inspired change to the look of the ads. She proposed that the

people didnt need to be in the shot as long as there was some evidence that they hadbeen there and just left.

The proposal for the first people free ad (above) and the actual ad (right )


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This solved the problem of the readers perception of any individual model which couldsignificantly impact on the effectiveness of the message. It also reduced the cost ofmaking the ad as there were no talent fees.

Hence in the next ad the people were not visible but the reader could imagine theirvery recent presence the unmade bed, the tea cup and saucer and the book. It wasa real bedroom and didnt have the feel of a studio set.

The full bleed look of the earlier series was replaced with a more sophisticated layoutwhich was aimed at bringing the SA/YO market back and a play on words headlinewas adopted.

As in the first kitchen ad, the loudspeakers were used to show some proportion, butthis time the main product was taken out of the room and superimposed on thephotograph. In the original shot, the product was sitting on a cabinet against the wallopposite the bed, but it lacked prominence so it was removed and a separate shot ofthe product was added in.

Megs idea worked and so in September 1996 it was decided to use the sameapproach to re-invigorate the Avant video system campaign. A mock-up was createdand quickly approved. However finding a real room to shoot the ad in which was inkeeping with the design concept proved to be a huge problem. Eventually it wasdecided to approach the photographer of the actual picture used for the conceptdevelopment. The almost monochromatic look of the room made it very suitable forreproduction in blackand white in the presswhich was part of theoriginal brief.

Based on the successof the previous ad theyknew that the productdid not need to beactually in the room soonce permission touse the photo wasobtained it was then amatter of shooting theproduct in a studio toget the desired angleand lighting. This hadthe added benefit thatthe position of thetelevision could bechanged according tothe size and shape ofeach version of the ad.

The intention was tocreate a consistentback-up to themagazine campaignwhich would provide a

The second Avant ad. A B&W press version was also produced


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retail response, at the same time re-inforcing the brand positioning from the magazineappearances. In Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide the press ads were run on the frontpage.

By 1997, other brands, particularly Loewe, had followed B&Os advertising lead with adesigner interior look. Loewe had also adopted worlds best television as apositioning statement soon after B&O stopped using it. The similarity of the layout withthe Bang & Olufsen bedroom ad was striking but if anything it re-inforced the B&Obrand.

Because Loewe was such a little known name in Australia at that time the brand sign-off did not claim ownership of the headline proposition and the picture of the bed andthe worlds best headline were easily confused.

The striking similarity of the Loewe advertising to the Bang & Olufsen style

Redesigning the showrooms to deliver the promise

Bang & Olufsen showrooms at that time looked very Scandinavian. They were simple,clean and uncluttered. This certainly had a filtering effect on potential customers andprovided an immediate indication that Bang & Olufsen was not just another Hi-Ficompany.

Due to the expansion of the product range, especially in television products, a new andlarger showroom at Bondi Junction was required and it was decided to include a verydomestic looking interior. This was in fact the final cog in the wheel. The marketinghad been completely revamped, the sales team were up-skilled and it was only theshowroom (where the new type of customers would come face to face with the product)that needed to be integrated into the offer.

The key B&O elements of the special wall panels and display system were retained inthe front area but the furniture and other elements were carefully selected to lift theexperience beyond that of a normal hi-fi showroom. Behind that were two extra roomsthat were designed to look like a lounge room and a dining room.


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A prominent Sydney interior designer who had done a lot of VA style interiors wasemployed to do the fit-out and Donaldson and Tolliday worked very closely with her toachieve a functional outcome.

The aim was to enhance thelistening or viewing experience bymaking it appear more like thehome of a friend than a shop. Itwas very important that thecustomers could identify with theinterior. This meant that everydetail had to be correct, from thepaintings and furniture to thecarpets and wall finishes. Thelounge room became a singlesystem Home Cinema areafeaturing the top of the range

products, and the dining roomhad a few systems laid out in avery real looking environment.

A section of the lounge in the new Bondi Junction showroom

The result was a significant and immediate increase in sales through that showroom. Itactually worked as a mindset filter in that some people were more comfortable in thefront section and others would gravitate immediately to the two domestic rooms. Thesales people found it easier and quicker to close a sale and the average value of eachtransaction also increased.

The B&O wall panels at the front blended with carefully selected furniture and finishes to create a very different atmos here


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As the series of advertisements progressed they slowly shifted to a style which wasless antagonistic to the established SA/YO customers. A careful choice was made ona product by product basis for the advertising style and the media used, and this alsohelped to reduce collateral damage from such targeted campaigns.

Working with the Value Segments 1 is not an easy or a quick fix, and it requirescomplete commitment at a senior management level for it to permeate across theorganisation and throughout every aspect of the marketing process. There must be aclear understanding of both the rationale and the time frame, and commitment bythose at an operational level. Given all of the above, Value Segments 1 is a valid andproven tool.


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APPENDIX 1

A Summary of the Roy Morgan Values Segments 1

In the past it was possible to identify the target audience in terms of birthplace, age,

education and income. Consumer markets could also be targeted on the basis of priorpurchase behaviour. If it was bought last time, brand loyalty was assumed as thebasis of future consumption patterns.

With increasing education, income and social mobility comes an increasing degree ofindividualisation, a reduced acceptance of corporate values, increasing search fordiversity, difference and personal development. Market behaviour becomes anopportunity for personal expression, exploration and excitement. These forcesconspire to make the task for the marketing and corporate planners almost impossiblewith old instruments.

Demographic analysis of research data can answer WHO is doing WHAT.Psychographic analysis can provide information on WHY individuals are behaving inthis way.

However individuals are complex and they rarely behave consistently nor according tothe box we may choose to put them in. A broader model of group behaviour needs tobe used if we are to understand some of the most important questions in marketingtoday:

What would change a no decision into a yes or visa versa?

What factors influence and predict the behaviours?

What would happen if your marketing approach to one of those factors werechanged?

Some of the factors influencing yes and no decisions are purely demographic - if youdont have any money you cannot usually buy something. Psychographics also play arole; individuals who are image conscious are more likely to say yes to somethingwhich makes a good impression on other people. However, unless you are dealingwith a truly mass market, generic product, these factors alone will not predict a yes orno decision. We may live next door to, or work with, someone of the same age, sex,income, socioeconomic group, marital status, education and job description and even

have the same attitudes and opinions, yet still purchase different products.To develop a predictive model you must also take into the different forces which shapeour behaviour and responses, issues such as Life Satisfaction, Progressiveness, Price& Quality expectations, innovation, individualism etc and their interaction. You mustexamine the pattern of responses and interrelationships of these issues and how thisinfluences the decision to say yes or no to your product or message. Thisinterrelationship of issues becomes the map. The areas where these issues interact toproduce different mindsets and responses to issues amongst groups of peoplebecome the individual Values Segments 1. On the following pages, the segmentsreferred to in this document are described.


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ROY MORGAN VALUES SEGMENTS 1

CONVENTIONALFAMILY LIFE

Conventional Family Life is a pattern of thinking most closelyassociated with people who represent the core of middle Australia,with values centered around the significant events in their personaland family lives. Within the segment exists the dream of owningyour own home in the suburbs, driving a good, solid car and havingchildren. Other products, too, must be good, solid, reliable andvalue for money.

They choose media that provides light information andentertainment relevant to their family-oriented life-style. Theirchoices also reflect their need to keep a tight control on theirexpenses - television, radio and videos attract higher than averagemarket shares, while media that costs - magazines and cinema,attracts a lower than average market share.

Conventional Family Life television viewing is slightly above averthey particularly enjoy the excitement of game shows, and the lighthow other families cope in soaps. Serious, information-type shABC/SBS TV attract a lesser market share than average, exceptevening news which keeps them informed on the outside world ancould affect themselves and their families.

While they are light readers of magazines, their interest in the homeand family results in higher than average readership of home andlifestyle magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens and FamilyCircle, parenting magazines like Mother & Baby, and the majorwomens magazines - Womans Day and Womens Weekly.

They are less likely than average to read newspapers, except for theregional newspapers, a reflection of where this group is more likelyto live - the outer suburbs of the capital cities and country areas -and their interest in the local community.

Conventional Family Life are also more likely than average to readcatalogues, possibly looking for bargains to stretch their limited

disposable income.

These results come from Roy Morgan Single Source, the worlds largest single sourcedatabase, for which approximately 60,000 Australians aged 14 and over are interviewedface-to-face each year.


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YOUNG OPTIMISM Young Optimism is a pattern of thinking associated with youngprofessionals, technocrats and students who are optimistic and seek to improve their prospects in life to gain a respected place insociety. They are into image and style (not fads and fashions) andare also busy planning their careers, attending university andthinking about the future.

Their nature, interests and educational commitments make themmuch higher than average users of the Internet. Young Optimism usethe Internet both from home and educational institutions, mainly toresearch topics of personal interest as well as gathering informationfor their academic pursuits.

Their interest in learning more and having a broader perspectivealso makes them higher than average readers of newspapers,particularly the major daily and national daily newspapers.

Their selection of specialist magazines reflects a wide variety of quality interests. They read the magazines oriented towards theyounger market like Rolling Stone, Juice, Cosmopolitan and Cleo,but they also read Elle, Vogue, Mode and She, reflecting theirinterest in image and style. More specialised consumption can beseen in business, computer, motoring and sports titles.

Commercial TV holds less of an attraction for them and is watchedmostly as a source of light entertainment and relaxation.Nonetheless, they are attracted to the more sophisticated off-beatand witty programmes and are interested in science fiction andfantasy. The evening soaps like Melrose Place are also commonlywatched.

Their highly active social lives are reflected in their higher thanaverage consumption of video movies and cinema.

Radio is a medium this busy, active group can listen to while doing

other things, whether it is studying, driving or socialising.



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VISIBLE

ACHIEVEMENT

Visible Achievement refers to the pattern of thinking associated

with people who have made it in whatever field they are involvedand are confident in their own abilities and position. Despite beingsuccessful, they retain traditional values about home, work andsociety. Being highly individualistic, they do not need to provethemselves or impress anyone. This, combined with their practicaland realistic natures means they are happy to shop at places likeTarget and factory second stores.

Their higher than average readership of the national dailynewspapers reflects their desire for knowledge. They also tend to beheavier than average readers of magazines, particularly businessand finance related magazines such as BRW, Personal Investment

and the Bulletin. Due to their frequent flying, they are also higherthan average readers of inflight magazines.

Considering work and family time as being important, they are onlyaverage viewers of commercial TV. As well as televisionprogrammes which reflect their magazines reading habits - thebusiness, news and current affairs - they are more likely thanaverage to watch ABC and SBS programmes. The lightentertainment programmes - the soaps, game shows and chat shows- hold little interest for them.

Their commercial radio listening is similarly light, tending towardstations playing Gold and NewsTalk. They are above averageusers of the Internet, mostly for commercial purposes.



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SOCIALLY AWARE Socially Aware is usually associated with the highest socio-

economic group - a community-minded and socially active patternof thinking which can be found among politicians, public servantsand pressure groups. They are information vacuum cleaners and arealways searching for something new and different and new things tolearn.

For Socially Aware , media provides inte llectual stimulation ratherthan relaxation. Quality and depth of information is required, whichresults in a lower than average consumption of the more stereotypedprogrammes available on commercial radio and TV.

This segment are much higher than average Internet users. Socially

Aware are using the Internet access both from home and work andusing it mostly to gather information for academic and commercialpurposes.

They tend to be light viewers of commercial TV, preferring theABC and SBS which offer more programmes that give analternative perspective and more information on issues. Their tastein comedy tends to be more witty and satiric. Video viewing isslightly above average and visits to the cinema are popular.

They are heavy consumers of newspapers, particularly the nationalnewspapers and metropolitan dailies which feed their desire forinformation.

Socially Aware s interest in magazines reflects their desire for newinformation which is not presented in mainstream media and offersthe cutting edge in new technology and products. Their heavyreadership of national newspapers also makes them more likely toread magazines like The Australian Magazine and The FinancialReview magazine. They are also frequent flyers and read the in-flight magazines.



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APPENDIX 2

The maps

Note the incorrect nomenclature Visible Achievers vs Visible Achievement


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APPENDIX 3

The Campaign development

A typical press advertisement of 1992 which ran on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Adelaide Advertiser The Brisbane Courier Mail and the New Zealand Herald and in the early general news section of the West Australian


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A typical Bang & Olufsen double page magazine ad from 1992


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The first attempt leveraging off another brand


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Second idea an endorsement strategy


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The third attempt too European and lacking a connection with a local audience


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The first sketch layout for the new advertisement


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The second sketch putting the copy into a panel and bringing the product to the foreground


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The third concept where the sign off was moved to become the headline


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A mock-up for the location finder to work towards


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The launch version of the new ad appeared in the Good Weekend magazine 10 th anniversary

edition both in Sydney and Melbourne


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Single page magazine version of the first new ad for ongoing use


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The mock-up for the location search for the first TV ad in the new style


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The final ad for the Avant television the second in the new series


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The press ad for the new Avant TV aimed at the Socially Aware 1 segment


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The third ad in the new series a less expensive product and aimed at a broader target audience


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Mock-up for the first people free ad


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The second advertisement of the new second series


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The living room in the new Bondi Junction showroom leading through to the dining room,both aimed strongly at the Visible Achievement 1 segment and a significant change from any previous attempt at a demonstration room

re-position a brand or b＆o

Documents