Watching the Super Bowl last night was an odd experience for me. For the first time, I watched the big game in someone else’s home theater, and that inspired conversations about shows people had seen about the home theaters of the stars, and articles they’d read about houses with big home theaters. Never before had our business been so front and center in the conversations among friends and neighbors who didn’t at first realize what I wrote about for a living.
Then, mid-way through that snoozer of a game, the coolest commercial of the night (in my humble opinion) came on and literally rocked my neighbor’s basement theater that was fed by modest Epson projector and some pretty capable in-wall speakers behind the acoustically transparent the 110-inch screen. It was the Sonos commercial. Did you see it? We can talk all we want about how much about how important Google’s acquisition of Nest is for the visibility of our business, but nothing captures the attention of the general population like a cool Super Bowl commercial.
Then, because I was trying to keep up with the prop bets pool we were running during the game, I checked my phone and had received this email from the PR agency representing Sonos:
“If you’re enjoying the game right now, you may have seen our spot that aired a couple of minutes ago. Wanted to send you a little background in case it piqued your interest.
In 2002, we set out with a goal – to reinvent home audio for the digital age. Our vision was simple – fill every home with music and make listening a valued experience again. We’re making it easy for everybody to listen to the music they love in every room of their home. To hear the songs they love, to discover new music they never knew existed, and to appreciate it all with the highest sound quality.
That time is finally now.
As we continue to take this vision to music lovers around the globe, today we brought it to one of the world’s biggest stages. Our current Room Tones campaign has received an incredible response since the holidays. We chose to air the Face Off ad because it is particularly beloved with music from legendary producer Rick Rubin and the visual magic of Mark Romanek’s directing. Collaboration is an important avenue for telling our story in a meaningful way and it played a significant role in the campaign and extends to the many ways we work with interesting people in the music community. More details on that and our most memorable works can be found here.
For the first time that I can recall, our industry is getting major mainstream attention. I hope it pays off for you and your custom integration business. I hope that you start getting new business from consumers who want their rooms to light up with cool music like that commercial they saw during the Super Bowl. Fortunately for Sonos and our business, the commercial didn’t air during the fourth quarter when most had given up on Peyton Manning and switched over to Downton Abbey instead.
