Audiodo
A paradigm shift in the audio world.
Quintessential Swedish engineering that brings headphone technology to the future.
FIRST MILESTONE
SOLIDIFICATION AS INGREDIENT BRAND
Audiodo started out with only thing for certain, they would be moving forward as an ingredient brand. When I joined the team in January of 2020, they had just released their first product with Skullcandy’s Crusher ANC but were unfortunately white labeled. No trace of Audiodo made it onto any of Skullcandys marketing material.
A big part of Audiodo’s success was dependent on the representation of the brand as an ingredient brand so first step was to convince the bigger names that using ingredient branding was in fact mutually beneficial for both. I was tasked with figuring out how we were going to do this. Lots of research, beautiful presentation decks, strategic explanations, and example graphics and copy later, Audiodo made it onto their first product packaging—Skullcandy’s Crusher EVO.
THE REAL CHALLENGE
LAYING BRANDING + MARKETING GROUNDWORK FOR LATE-STAGE STARTUP
To say I started from scratch would be brazen…but close to reality. The only fundaments that were in place in early 2020 were the name of the company, the logo and some early presentation decks meant for VC’s and potential clients. A tall mountain of work was ahead in order to take the Audiodo brand to its next phase. Here’s the synopsis:
Brand audit and research
Who are we, what do we do, and why does it matter
Target audiences, ICP’s and buyer personas
Ingredient branding roadmap
Business goals
Market analysis
Audio business
Direct and partial competitors
Competing tech solutions
Identifying USP’s and other markers for differentiation
Strategic marketing plan
Communicating for B2B and B2C
Planning and prioritizing go-to-market tasks
Building PR relationships and pitching stories
Internal branding
How-to communication guide’s for sales, R+D, and external partners
Onboarding presentations
TONE OF VOICE P.1
THE COOL, THE NERDY, AND THE CONFIDENT
Cool, nerdy, and confident. These were the words that would guide our communications with all touchpoints: investors, potential hires, clients, and end-users, etc. The persona that we landed on was one that was incredibly knowledgeable about their passion (ie audio and music) but also someone who was less socially awkward.
The diction would be a mix between casual and complex. The language would be simple and conversational, all while being intricate and poised. The syntax would be direct, concise, and only lengthy when going into technological detail.
Scroll to see some examples from the web, social media channels and the Personal Sound app.
WEBSITE
SOCIAL MEDIA
MOBILE APP
While developing our own brand communications, we were also supporting our clients in their go-to-market communication strategies. It was crucial to our business to build brand awareness through our partners. By collaborating with the headphone brands, we could genuinely act like partners and also ensure that our technology was accurately described to the end-consumer.
All of our partners had slightly different target audiences so we made sure to help them find something that worked for their brand (at this stage of our ingredient branding journey we were lenient, but later projects had more of us and less of them). Examples below:
A BRAND WITHIN A BRAND
TONE OF VOICE P. 2
Skullcandy
PSB Speakers
Fresh ‘n Rebel
NOCS Design
THE LEARNINGS
BRANDING + MARKETING SIDE-BY-SIDE
Branding and marketing. Prioritizing and timelines. These are essential to any company and any team but are particularly integral in a start-up environment. You have to learn to make a little go a long way and to think on your feet at all times. You need to be able to context switch at any given moment and to understand when it’s time for branding exercises and when it’s time for marketing efforts.
At this stage for Audiodo, the efforts on the marketing side give a much better ROI—especially since the company acts as an ingredient brand. Still in its late-stage start-up phase, Audiodo is still trying to get customers’ attention and soon it can focus its efforts on keeping it.