Marketing in the News: Sonos Roam

 Most people, like me, enjoy feeling upbeat or even relaxed and have been steered to listening to music during those times. The Sonos Roam is a new portable speaker that has been released for your everyday adventure and is said to be a versatile way to listen to your music on the go or even in your home. An article from Wall Street Journal indicates you can listen on this speaker outdoors or indoors with bluetooth, has wi-fi capabilities compatible with Alexa, Mac or iOS devices, is budget friendly and extremely durable with falls and even water. Sonos only releases products once every year or two so consumers expect it to be worth the wait, at the same time, the company has only been around for about 4 years. 

Sonos' recent video ad (below) for their new product showcases the portable and lightweight speaker going on adventures from the beach, mountains and the woods showing its reliability with the wilderness. But, how exactly does it fare? A review article from The Verge indicates how there are issues with bluetooth, battery life and its problems with sound quality. Although the article gives the Sonos Roam potential to be great, is it worth it? That is up to you. It depends on the kind of lifestyle you want to have with your Roam and if you think other products are more compatible. Sonos is focused on reinventing home audio, staying connected and being pioneers for audio. 

Like the Verge article indicated, this is a new product launch for Sonos. They are trying to market a new and easier way for listening to audio. Not only easier but in a way that fits an active lifestyle. For example, the ad shows the speaker in many different outdoor areas like the woods, beach, on bike rides or hikes. It shows its durability when the commercial shows it being dropped in rocks, on the ground or even in the salty ocean. Through these visuals, it lets the consumer know that it can withstand a lot of activity and different environments. I think that this ad does show the "why" of the golden circle. It is making this product for your certain lifestyle and they believe it would be compatible with it. 

However, the article and ads do show some challenges for this product. As we know, there are a lot of competing brands of portable speakers and not even I knew Sonos before coming upon these ads. Brands like JBL, Alexa, Bose, etc. are much better known brands for portable speakers. I think that this company has an advantage of affordability when it comes to portable speakers over the more known brands. 

I think the marketing approach that Sonos uses is neither good or bad. It is just typical when it comes to speakers and how they are represented by many brands. The video ad shows the speaker in environments where it excels, just like other ads for speakers does. I noticed the people in the ad, however, are young adults who seem to be enjoying their time when using the product. Personally, it spoke to me and showed how people my age could be an ideal consumer of this product. This points back to the idea of marketing and how you have to target your consumers and if they believe in what you are selling they will buy it. If the consumer cares, they will buy it and the idea will spread. 

If I were to fix the approach of marketing this product, I would try to engage different audiences. I mentioned in the video ad that they had a lot of younger people enjoying the product, what about high school, middle age, elderly? For example, if I were to make an ad that tailors to older people, I would show how it was an easy-to-use product in the house for older people, show them practicing their lovely dance moves on a nice romantic evening using the Sonos speaker. 

As a consumer, I learned that there are certainly ways to construct an ad that is in the interest of a certain group. Like I said, the ad made me think that I would enjoy this product because of my lifestyle and what I would do with this speaker, and maybe that was exactly their point. But, I do think to be successful in selling your product, you also have to be versatile in trying to reach other groups of consumers.