Latest Q1 ad shows Magico doesn't get Marketing Strategy

caesar · Oct 10, 2011

For all of their abilities to make "accurate" speakers, Magico has had some serious marketing gaffes in the last few years. The biggest gaffe I am aware of is when Magico released the all-aluminum q5 just a handful of months after releasing the m5, which was proclaimed as the greatest speaker of all time by TAS. The best Magico dealers and their best customers jumped on board of the $90K M5 speaker, only to get a bucket of ice water thrown at them with the Q5 announcement. And the dealer-partners are still trying to get rid of their demos. As I write this, there are 3 M5's listed on Audiogon. The m5's can be had for under $40k, with many of the dealer partners taking big hits, especially when the new all time great Q5 can be had new for $60K.

Whereas the q5/m5 debacle showed that Magico could give a hoot about their best customers and dealers who stuck their necks out for them, the latest marketing mistake is an example of Magico's lack of understanding of basic, decades-old marketing strategies. Magico has a print ad in TAS for the new Q1 speaker. The ad shows the picture of the speaker with the famous Schopenhauer quote: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." This ad reminds me of a college student in a drunken stupor getting a tattoo containing Chinese characters - only to understand what they mean the next day.

Magico has been called the speaker with the most fidelity to the recording. Jonathan Valin has said so in all his Magico reviews, Michael Fremer pretty much confirmed this, and the likes of top dealers like Overture Audio has Magico in their reference room for this same reason. In marketing terms, it can be said that Magico has successfully captured the consumer mind-share as the "accurate" speaker in the market place filled with many uber-expensive speakers that don't have a clear marketing/ sonic identity and thus confuse the heck out the of the customers. Any other brand will have a hard time taking this "accurate" positioning away from Magico, especially since they have Jonathan Valin "working for them" as an unofficial marketing rep earning free Q5 demo speakers by reminding TAS readers any chance he gets that "Magico is the best, highest fidelity, most truthful to the recording speaker he has heard".

Wolf &Co., however, do not seem to get their position in the market. I hate to burst their bubble, but not everyone is interested in the most truthful reproduction of the recording. Instead, some of us want to hear a concert in our homes. We want to suspend disbelief and pretend we are hearing the show, not focus on the details or the artifacts of the recording and mastering processing which are dull and distracting.

So the Schopenhauer quote is kind of like BMW forgetting they are the positioned as the "Ultimate Driving Machine" and simultaneously going after Volvo's safety-interested customers and Mercedes luxury-interested customers. But the reality is that just like those primarily interested in luxury will not choose a BMW over a Mercedes, those not interested in hearing the last detail on the recording will not get a magico.

Successful marketing strategy entails understanding who you are, understanding what your customers want, and then aiming at them like a laser beam. Magico, however, doesn't seem to get this. As they say, nothing fails like success.

fas42 · Oct 10, 2011

caesar said:
The ad shows the picture of the speaker with the famous Schopenhauer quote: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

My God, I think I've just found my signature, my tag line! Tim will be pleased ...

Frank

The chap using the famous Schopenhauer quote: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ...

KeithR · Oct 10, 2011

I would love to own a pair of M5s for say 30k. gladly take the wood cabinet over the metal.

Steve Williams · Oct 10, 2011

KeithR said:
I would love to own a pair of M5s for say 30k. gladly take the wood cabinet over the metal.

If you wait long enough I bet you'll see it on Audiogon. Keith as much as I like the Q5 I have to agree with you about the M5. I heard it at the CA Show last year. It was stunning

MylesBAstor · Oct 10, 2011

fas42 said:
My God, I think I've just found my signature, my tag line! Tim will be pleased ...

Frank

The chap using the famous Schopenhauer quote: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ...

Yes and don't forget the other quote: Great men think alike but fools seldom differ

microstrip · Oct 10, 2011

caesar said:
(...) Magico has been called the speaker with the most fidelity to the recording. Jonathan Valin has said so in all his Magico reviews, Michael Fremer pretty much confirmed this, and the likes of top dealers like Overture Audio has Magico in their reference room for this same reason. In marketing terms, it can be said that Magico has successfully captured the consumer mind-share as the "accurate" speaker in the market place filled with many uber-expensive speakers that don't have a clear marketing/ sonic identity and thus confuse the heck out the of the customers. (...)

Caesar,

Do you think that two reviewers and a shop are enough to support the view that Magico "has has successfully captured the consumer mind-share as the "accurate" speaker" ?

I only listened to the Q5 for short periods, and can not have a reliable opinion on them, although I enjoyed them very much .

Also when I read in the Fremer review "But elsewhere in the audioband, I never wanted more of anything, though a little less in the upper octaves might have produced a more accurate balance, if perhaps not as much pleasure. " , I can not think he is promoting accuracy!

caesar · Oct 10, 2011

microstrip said:
Caesar,

Do you think that two reviewers and a shop are enough to support the view that Magico "has has successfully captured the consumer mind-share as the "accurate" speaker" ?

I only listened to the Q5 for short periods, and can not have a reliable opinion on them, although I enjoyed them very much .

Also when I read in the Fremer review "But elsewhere in the audioband, I never wanted more of anything, though a little less in the upper octaves might have produced a more accurate balance, if perhaps not as much pleasure. " , I can not think he is promoting accuracy!

Microstrip, I think Magico is well on its way to capturing that market position. Anyone looking to spend major money on a speaker is likely to hear the speaker at a show, where it will be probably demoed with the "neutral/ accurate" Spectral or Soulution gear. The prospective buyer is also likely to read up on the speaker from anyone who wrote anything about the speaker. I can't argue with what you bring up from Fremer's review. But on the other hand, there is nothing in his review that contradicts that this is a very transparent, non-colored, and revealing speaker.

Moving past Fremer to Alan Sircom: "...We’ve become so used to having sounds with a distinct tonal balance, that when you hear something that’s inherently flat, it can sound ‘flat’...

It’s as good as your discs, and no better. That sounds like damning it with faint praise, but is the key to quality. Swap from The Fall to Charles Mingus and there should be a huge change in recording quality; different production values, studios, engineers, musicians and mastering. That disc-to-disc differentiation stands out with uncanny clarity here.

The other side to this is plain; don’t go expecting the Q5 to make a silk purse out of a Lady Gaga album. If it sounds congested, constricted, forward or laid back in the recording, the Q5 will make that apparent. ..."

And finally, here's a quote from Magico's biggest proponent, Valin: "...To achieve high fidelity as I define it means that the loudspeakers and everything else in the playback chain need to “disappear” as sound sources. To accomplish this, they must be neutral, transparent, high in resolution, seamless in top-to-bottom coherence, low in distortion, and capable of a high degree of realism rather than romance. As beguiling as such things can sometimes sound, pieces of gear that impose a beauteous or exciting or forgiving sonic template on the presentation—and, thus, don’t disappear—are, in spite of any other virtues, finally not for me. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t or shouldn’t be for you. I have no argument with friends and colleagues who prefer a less “neutral” speaker, either because they think a more bespoke presentation makes music more like the real thing (as, for example, those “absolute sound” types who eq their systems to roll off the treble and/or boost the bass—or who prefer equipment that effectively does the same thing because of built-in dips and boosts in frequency response) or because they think a romantic presentation makes recorded music more attractive and, well, “musical.”..."

(As an interesting irony with Magico and TAS, TAS put the Q5 on the cover with "High Fidelity" underneath it. I, and many TAS followers, thought TAS was about the "Absolute Sound". Why not start another magazine for "high fidelity" gear, instead of destroying a brand position HP took years and years to build?)

But even if Fremer is correct, and the Q5 is a bit "colored", good marketing need not be 100% truth. (Yet needs to be verifiable. Dr. Dre's Beats headphones, with its pumped up bass, would not be credible as an "accurate headphone".) As I said in the Wilson marketing thread, Wilson was the leader for many years, but I am not aware that Wilson ever communicated what exactly their brand stood for. And the positioning as the "real thing" is still open to them! Magico, on the other hand, seems to have cemented their positioning in the last couple of years thanks to its sonic attributes, but its principals just don't get that it's not about them, but about the customer.

caesar · Oct 10, 2011

KeithR said:
I would love to own a pair of M5s for say 30k. gladly take the wood cabinet over the metal.

KeithR, try to make a deal. The market has tanked, and the economy is not improving. Someone may want to get rid of them for cash here and now. "Ask and you shall receive." What do you got to lose?

DaveyF · Oct 11, 2011

Caesar, i have to disagree with you on this one. IMHO, Magico understands marketing perfectly. The Q1 ad is a good example of this....why, because IMHO they have set out to imbue an image of luxury and exclusivity in their ad that they know will appeal to the Buyer who is willing to shell out 25 large for a speaker that without the marketing and name would be a very tough sell at or near to that price. Remember,the Q1 is a small speaker with just two drivers and limited response due to the physics of its size. However, Alon Wolf has been down that road before with his Mini series and was able to overcome that price resistance with clever marketing and smart dealer/ reviewer preparation. If Alon, et al, hadn't garnered the press through smart marketing, do you think his company would enjoy the position they are in today?

KeithR · Oct 11, 2011

Steve Williams said:
If you wait long enough I bet you'll see it on Audiogon. Keith as much as I like the Q5 I have to agree with you about the M5. I heard it at the CA Show last year. It was stunning

I'm sure the Q5 is great---but have a hard time believing it's 50k better

KeithR · Oct 11, 2011

caesar said:
KeithR, try to make a deal. The market has tanked, and the economy is not improving. Someone may want to get rid of them for cash here and now. "Ask and you shall receive." What do you got to lose?

I live in a condo on the second floor, so have some concerns with installation. (we have a small elevator though) I was close to buying Maxx2s 2 years ago and had the same concern.

The other issue is I'm not sure I want that inefficient of a speaker long term. Although my Mac monos are so good for the money, probably just going to keep them for a long time. They would drive the M5s with aplomb.

caesar · Oct 11, 2011

DaveyF said:
Caesar, i have to disagree with you on this one. IMHO, Magico understands marketing perfectly. The Q1 ad is a good example of this....why, because IMHO they have set out to imbue an image of luxury and exclusivity in their ad that they know will appeal to the Buyer who is willing to shell out 25 large for a speaker that without the marketing and name would be a very tough sell at or near to that price. Remember,the Q1 is a small speaker with just two drivers and limited response due to the physics of its size. However, Alon Wolf has been down that road before with his Mini series and was able to overcome that price resistance with clever marketing and smart dealer/ reviewer preparation. If Alon, et al, hadn't garnered the press through smart marketing, do you think his company would enjoy the position they are in today?

DaveyF, I agree with you in a lot of respects. After all, they are very successful. But if we look analytically at their marketing strategy, it has been quite simple: build a great product (with certain distinctive characteristics that appeal to some ( but definitely not all) people and use the Oprah strategy. The idea behind the Oprah strategy, of course, is to get your product to Oprah (or another famous celebrity) so she can fall in love with it and mention your product on her TV show to spread its virtues to millions of the easily influenced. The literature on influence in social networks is still inconclusive and we do not know whether success stems from “one cool celebrity” who has extraordinary power to influence the masses or whether it is a bunch of “easily influenced” lemmings that just follow along the authority figure.

In this case, the Oprah-like authority figure is Valin. Sure there have been others who have praised Magico. Stereophile put them on the cover a few years ago for the V3, but Stereophile did not put the Q5 on the cover. As far as all of the influencers go, no one has been even close to declaring his love for Magico as passionately or persistently as Valin. So having found their Oprah, Magico just camps their speakers at Valin’s home for a few years to be used as his reference. What this means is that since Valin pretty much reviews all high end gear, Magico gets constant mentions in compare and contrasts. And anyone who has read him knows he is not shy about lavishing praise on his favorites. Valin understands his marketing role very well. His constant mentions of the product bring it to “top of mind” for the customer from all of the other expensive gear out there. And also associate it with “best” through constant reinforcement. This strategy has been fairly cheap. (How much does the Q5 cost to Magico? And they will sell it later on the used market anyways.) And this strategy has been very successful. But just because someone executes a successful strategy does not mean they “perfectly” understand marketing.

To me, building great brands is about understanding your customer, creating a clear identity for your product, and brilliantly communicating to your target customer why your product is different and why they should buy it. My specific qualm with the ad I mention above is that it does not simply state what Magico or the Q1 is all about. The cool quote does not bring about the clarity. Instead, it arrogantly assumes that all customers are looking for the same thing and that Magico alone, despite public ridicule of their brilliance, can enlighten the customer with their speaker. Not a good way to convince the customer to buy. I bought the iPhone and the iPad without even looking at or trying the competing products because I knew exactly what the Apple brand stands for. You will never get me to buy an SUV no matter how much I can feel the road driving it or how fast it accelerates. I hate being high up in the SUV and would always choose a larger sports sedan instead. Likewise, I know many audiophiles who are not looking for the “flatness” and “truth to recording” that the Magico speaker does well. And years after the Stereophile cover claiming that Magico is revolutionary these audiophiles are still wondering what is so revolutionary about Magico. So, no, I don’t think they are perfect in their marketing strategy because, unfortunately, the Magico marketing strategy does not help the customer out of the morass of selecting expensive products in the audio industry.

DaveyF · Oct 11, 2011

caesar said:
To me, building great brands is about understanding your customer, creating a clear identity for your product, and brilliantly communicating to your target customer why your product is different and why they should buy it. My specific qualm with the ad I mention above is that it does not simply state what Magico or the Q1 is all about. The cool quote does not bring about the clarity. Instead, it arrogantly assumes that all customers are looking for the same thing and that Magico alone, despite public ridicule of their brilliance, can enlighten the customer with their speaker. Not a good way to convince the customer to buy. I bought the iPhone and the iPad without even looking at or trying the competing products because I knew exactly what the Apple brand stands for. You will never get me to buy an SUV no matter how much I can feel the road driving it or how fast it accelerates. I hate being high up in the SUV and would always choose a larger sports sedan instead. Likewise, I know many audiophiles who are not looking for the “flatness” and “truth to recording” that the Magico speaker does well. And years after the Stereophile cover claiming that Magico is revolutionary these audiophiles are still wondering what is so revolutionary about Magico. So, no, I don’t think they are perfect in their marketing strategy because, unfortunately, the Magico marketing strategy does not help the customer out of the morass of selecting expensive products in the audio industry.

Caesar, I do not think that we can say that Alon doesn't understand his customer...you may think that is the case, however, that does not make it so

.
For all we know, Alon may believe that his customer base is attracted to cool quotes, associating them with a product desirability and a certain mystique that is attractive to the Buyer that Alon is seeking.

This type of advertising may not appeal to you, but it has been very successful with many brands and products in the past, perfume coming first to mind. The idea of expounding a mystique and creating panache to a product has been been proven in the past, especially to the well-heeled customer that Alon is seemingly trying to attract.

KeithR · Oct 12, 2011

While I don't disagree that Valin is the Magico cheerleader and that is how the product has been marketed---you could make the same case with Wilson and Fremer.

And every Wilson makes the cover of Stereophile in the past 10 years.

Keith

caesar · Oct 13, 2011

KeithR said:
While I don't disagree that Valin is the Magico cheerleader and that is how the product has been marketed---you could make the same case with Wilson and Fremer.

And every Wilson makes the cover of Stereophile in the past 10 years.

Keith

Yes, the "Oprah/ celebrity" strategy is very common in this industry. The products aren't very well differentiated from each other - in many ways due to poor marketing skills, so the easiest way to break out of the clutter is to get a celebrity endorsement. With that said, NO ONE OUT THERE is as brazen as Valin in promoting Magico.

As for Stereophile covers, Wilson may be the most valuable brand in audio. If you put a Wilson on the cover, you will sell more magazines. I was very surprised, however, that Stereophile did not put the Magico Q5 on the cover.

caesar · Oct 13, 2011

DaveyF said:
Caesar, I do not think that we can say that Alon doesn't understand his customer...you may think that is the case, however, that does not make it so.
For all we know, Alon may believe that his customer base is attracted to cool quotes, associating them with a product desirability and a certain mystique that is attractive to the Buyer that Alon is seeking.

This type of advertising may not appeal to you, but it has been very successful with many brands and products in the past, perfume coming first to mind. The idea of expounding a mystique and creating panache to a product has been been proven in the past, especially to the well-heeled customer that Alon is seemingly trying to attract.

I just don't agree, DaveyF. We can only judge Wolf by his actions and by what successful brands do. Successful brands are about a consistent promise to the customer - about what the company is about, what the brand is about, and why it matters to the customer. And everything the company does in its actions with its customers, actions with its dealers, the advertising messages it sends out, etc., has to consistently reinforce what he brand stands for. If you are inconsistent or incoherent, you break the brand promise. In this case, the juvenile sounding philosophy quote is just plain false. Just as I will not buy an SUV, I will not come around to a Magico. Flat sounding speakers that allow me to discover new recording details in lieu of emotion are just not my thing.

Brands are a gut feeling people have about the company. The key thing about brands is that it's not what Alon Wolf says it is or what Wolf can control, it's what the audiophiles say it is as it exists in their hearts and minds.

Phelonious Ponk · Oct 13, 2011

caesar said:
DaveyF, I agree with you in a lot of respects. After all, they are very successful. But if we look analytically at their marketing strategy, it has been quite simple: build a great product (with certain distinctive characteristics that appeal to some ( but definitely not all) people and use the Oprah strategy. The idea behind the Oprah strategy, of course, is to get your product to Oprah (or another famous celebrity) so she can fall in love with it and mention your product on her TV show to spread its virtues to millions of the easily influenced. The literature on influence in social networks is still inconclusive and we do not know whether success stems from “one cool celebrity” who has extraordinary power to influence the masses or whether it is a bunch of “easily influenced” lemmings that just follow along the authority figure.

In this case, the Oprah-like authority figure is Valin. Sure there have been others who have praised Magico. Stereophile put them on the cover a few years ago for the V3, but Stereophile did not put the Q5 on the cover. As far as all of the influencers go, no one has been even close to declaring his love for Magico as passionately or persistently as Valin. So having found their Oprah, Magico just camps their speakers at Valin’s home for a few years to be used as his reference. What this means is that since Valin pretty much reviews all high end gear, Magico gets constant mentions in compare and contrasts. And anyone who has read him knows he is not shy about lavishing praise on his favorites. Valin understands his marketing role very well. His constant mentions of the product bring it to “top of mind” for the customer from all of the other expensive gear out there. And also associate it with “best” through constant reinforcement. This strategy has been fairly cheap. (How much does the Q5 cost to Magico? And they will sell it later on the used market anyways.) And this strategy has been very successful. But just because someone executes a successful strategy does not mean they “perfectly” understand marketing.

To me, building great brands is about understanding your customer, creating a clear identity for your product, and brilliantly communicating to your target customer why your product is different and why they should buy it. My specific qualm with the ad I mention above is that it does not simply state what Magico or the Q1 is all about. The cool quote does not bring about the clarity. Instead, it arrogantly assumes that all customers are looking for the same thing and that Magico alone, despite public ridicule of their brilliance, can enlighten the customer with their speaker. Not a good way to convince the customer to buy. I bought the iPhone and the iPad without even looking at or trying the competing products because I knew exactly what the Apple brand stands for. You will never get me to buy an SUV no matter how much I can feel the road driving it or how fast it accelerates. I hate being high up in the SUV and would always choose a larger sports sedan instead. Likewise, I know many audiophiles who are not looking for the “flatness” and “truth to recording” that the Magico speaker does well. And years after the Stereophile cover claiming that Magico is revolutionary these audiophiles are still wondering what is so revolutionary about Magico. So, no, I don’t think they are perfect in their marketing strategy because, unfortunately, the Magico marketing strategy does not help the customer out of the morass of selecting expensive products in the audio industry.

Pretty good analysis, from this old marketing guy's point of view. I'd just differ on a couple of points. The Oprah business is not a marketing strategy, it's just a media strategy - picking the appropriate media vehicle to cary your message to your market. It worked beautifully, but that doesn't make it brilliant. What it is, is the same strategy many other high-end audio companies are using. Few do enough advertising to be effective. There are two effective media channels for them, both PR, not advertising: Reviewers and audiophile internet buzz. I'm not sure how Magico worked the reviewer strategy so well, but it doesn't appear to be strategic, it looks like they just produced a great product and got the attention they deserved. Maybe, ultimately, that is their strategy: Produce a very high-priced, high-end product that will distinguish itself from its competitors by not being euphonic. Or, more likely still, they are just obsessive people dedicated to what they think is the best a speaker can do - reproduce the recording - and it paid off.

But there was one other critical element in the marketing strategy -- the price. If an uber-accurate speaker with great extension, big spls, good looks and even response on and off axis was enough to capture the audiophile market, then the Revel Salon would have been an audiophile darling a few years before the Magico. Someone at Magico understood that their speaker had to be very expensive for their target market to believe that it was very good. And I also can't help but notice they didn't name it Accuro. Yeah, these guys knew what they wanted to produce. But they also knew who they wanted to sell it to.

As far as the ad is concerned, I think it's on strategy...The Truth. Accuracy is what it's all about...on target. Just not a great ad.

Tim

caesar · Oct 13, 2011

Phelonious Ponk said:
Pretty good analysis, from this old marketing guy's point of view. I'd just differ on a couple of points. The Oprah business is not a marketing strategy, it's just a media strategy - picking the appropriate media vehicle to cary your message to your market. It worked beautifully, but that doesn't make it brilliant. What it is, is the same strategy many other high-end audio companies are using. Few do enough advertising to be effective. There are two effective media channels for them, both PR, not advertising: Reviewers and audiophile internet buzz. I'm not sure how Magico worked the reviewer strategy so well, but it doesn't appear to be strategic, it looks like they just produced a great product and got the attention they deserved. Maybe, ultimately, that is their strategy: Produce a very high-priced, high-end product that will distinguish itself from its competitors by not being euphonic. Or, more likely still, they are just obsessive people dedicated to what they think is the best a speaker can do - reproduce the recording - and it paid off.

But there was one other critical element in the marketing strategy -- the price. If an uber-accurate speaker with great extension, big spls, good looks and even response on and off axis was enough to capture the audiophile market, then the Revel Salon would have been an audiophile darling a few years before the Magico. Someone at Magico understood that their speaker had to be very expensive for their target market to believe that it was very good. And I also can't help but notice they didn't name it Accuro. Yeah, these guys knew what they wanted to produce. But they also knew who they wanted to sell it to.

As far as the ad is concerned, I think it's on strategy...The Truth. Accuracy is what it's all about...on target. Just not a great ad.

Tim

Phelonious, we can call it a PR strategy, if you want. But whatever we call it, from an audiophile vantage point, other than an occasional appearance by Wolf at Overture to unveil a new speaker, the "celebrity" product placement and the constant mentions that result from it is their primary way of getting the word out.

As to whether it was a deliberate strategy or not, who knows. I am sure every audio designer out there dreams of winning awards, getting good reviews, and getting a marquee reviewer to use their gear as their reference. But for the dreams to come true, it takes both skill and luck. As far as business strategies go, I believe most are "emergent" rather than deliberate. The world is too complex to be able to predict exactly what will happen. You see something happening in the environment and you jump on it. You zig. You zag. A good example of this is what happened to Magico with this aluminum shop that they purchased. Maybe they had a deliberate strategy to go all aluminum one day when they had built up a war chest of a certain size to build it from scratch. However, once the aluminum machining shop came on the market, they evaluated their resources, skills, the environment, the competition (YG) and jumped on it.

You do bring up an excellent point about the price of the speaker. Who knows what methodology they used to price it. However, at $60K it is costs as much as a mid-size luxury sedan, which is probably not a coincidence. The $90K M5 may have turned off even the "rich" audiophiles. Wilson has a comparable speaker at $68K, while Vandersteen is at $45K for their "world class" flagship. But who knows what price point is high enough to stroke an audiophile's ego, yet low enough to actually result in sales to keep their shop busy and highly profitable.

Coming back to the ad, though, imagine if this was not Magico that was using the quote but a more euphonic brand like Sonus Faber or Cary. And if either Sonus or Cary claimed that a listener such as yourself would first ridicule it (which would be true), but would then accept it as a self-evident truth. Would you buy it? Having read many of your posts, I highly doubt it!!! If using the Schopenhauer quote is not arrogance, it is certainly sloppy thinking. Either way, it presents an incoherent message which takes away from the value of their brand. As you put it well, all communications should reinforce Accuro.

DaveyF · Oct 13, 2011

caesar said:
t.

Coming back to the ad, though, imagine if this was not Magico that was using the quote but a more euphonic brand like Sonus Faber or Cary. And if either Sonus or Cary claimed that a listener such as yourself would first ridicule it (which would be true), but would then accept it as a self-evident truth. Would you buy it? Having read many of your posts, I highly doubt it!!! If using the Schopenhauer quote is not arrogance, it is certainly sloppy thinking. Either way, it presents an incoherent message which takes away from the value of their brand. As you put it well, all communications should reinforce Accuro.

Caesar, I hate to say this but the fact that the ad is resonating so much with you would indicate to me that it is working.

After all, how many other ads in the magazine have had such an impact on you

caesar · Oct 13, 2011

Randall Smith said:
I think its a great ad. It draws a reaction and gets attention.

From what I have heard, Magico is 4 months behind in their orders, so things are going well. Not everyone else is doing as well. They may make mistakes in how and when they release new products, but they will probably learn from their mistakes. I do not think it has really hurt them. Magico is quickly becoming as polarizing as Wilson has been.

Randall, I agree that it is important for an ad to be unexpected, and undoubtedly Magico tried to break through the clutter. However, if all one had to do to have a successful ad and a successful brand was to create a catchy ad, I will let your imagination run wild with what kinds of things people would put in their ads to break away from the pack. If you closely read this thread, I have argued why this ad is not congruent with Magico's brand image. If anything is unclear, I will be happy to elaborate.

Also, you say Magico has probably learned from their mistakes. Do you have any evidence or examples? Has there been a rebate to their dealer partners who have taken hits selling their M5 demos? If the dealer partners are honest with you, I can guarantee that they were not happy having to take hits on the M5. As you say, Magico is doing well, so they can certainly afford to shore up their partners.

I guess I don't see how Magico is becoming polarizing. Their house sound is "accurate" and this is evident to anyone who listens to the speaker. People either connect with Magico or not. Nothing different if one test drives a Mercedes (luxury bias) or a BMW (drive feel/performance bias). Magico is doing well because they have a good product (for their target market). But at the same time, where would they be if they did not have Valin cheer-leading for them? And is what Valin doing 100% ethical?

Latest Q1 ad shows Magico doesn't get Marketing Strategy

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