Introduction
Over the years I have been very open around the development process of our speakers and subwoofers, creating and sharing in long development threads on selected forums. The time has come to share a bit from the marketing and branding side as well.
Bringing new and different to an inherently conservative market is always difficult. There is a need to explain what is different and why different is better. But an internet audience in 2025 has the attention span of a four year old on meth, so it's a difficult task. And what to focus on? What to convey?
Different
Some of the things that are different that a potential customer needs to understand and grasp:
- Why active speakers is better in a market where passive speakers still dominate, and remember to include the fact that amplification is built in when considering the price.
- Why a speaker system consisting of monitors + dedicated subwoofers is actually a really good idea, despite the fact that virtually no other brands do it.
- What the heck cardioid is and why it matters.
- That our choices of components and margin models means you can easily compare our systems to something twice the price.
- ..and more
So we need to convey multiple, pretty complicated ideas. Or do we? An alternative path is story telling and focusing on the result rather than how it is done. But this is also difficult, and it's hard to stand out from the crowd. Every manufacturer claims to be better and superior to anyone else. How can the consumer know who to trust?
Early adopters
Many will choose to go with the established, the long lived. But doing the same thing for fifty years doesn't necessarily result in a superior product. While it may feel like little has happened with regards to innovation in the loudspeaker industry, the opposite is true. The quality and capacity of the best speakers of 2025 is so vastly superior to what you could purchase say back in the 90s that it's hard to believe. So as a new brand, we need to focus on those who are interested in the new. The early adopters who want to try new things.
Finally we can't be everything to everyone. I've chosen to focus on music rather than home theater. We target music enthusiasts who want an end state system for their living room or dedicated listening space. With active speakers with neutral and accurate sound, it was also natural to target studios, so we do that as well.
Rock & Metal
A final focus I've had during the development of our speakers, is that really good speakers make most music sound good. If you have a really high end system, you shouldn't have to listen to just "hifi" music, you should be able to listen to your favorite music. Personally I'm a fan of rock and metal, and there are few if any brands who focus on that genre in the high-end segment.
At the risk of alienating those who are too posh to care for that, and/or listen only to classical music, we've let the focus on rock and on dynamic capability shine through on our website. Partly in the visuals, and partly in the text. Sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit. It's a difficult choice, because our systems are insanely good at soundstage and imaging, and conveying delicate vocals - which isn't necessarily something needed for rock. While our speakers sound awesome with any genre, "we are for everyone" just isn't a very strong message.
And how many high-end ("high-end") systems can play Rage Against The Machine at 100+ dB at the listening position without sounding horrible? Surprisingly few. And ours can. With ease. All day long.
I will try to share a bit more about the difficulties of marketing, branding and messaging in this blog, this is the first taste. Feel free to get in touch to share your thoughts, and your impression of Sigberg Audio!
