• by Aaron Baar , January 18, 2010

Depending on the person, buying car audio equipment can either be thrilling or daunting. Some people are audiophiles who care deeply about their components, while others are simple neophytes.

Pioneer Electronics is looking to take some of the guesswork out of its products with a new marketing strategy that breaks the company's in-vehicle entertainment and navigation products into four different levels, allowing people to determine which products best fit their needs.

"Pioneer has a broad and diverse mix of products and we try to meet the needs and mix for every consumer. The strategy was developed to define the different mix of our products for the consumer," Ted Cardenas, director of marketing for the mobile entertainment group for Pioneer Electronics, tells Marketing Daily. "We have 75 core products, from navigation tools to in-dash video and CD amplifiers. We wanted an easy way for the consumer to understand what the different levels of those products were."

"The Stage" groups products based on technology, features, performance and price. Products in the Stage 1 category, for instance, are entry-level devices for people looking to upgrade their original manufacturer systems. Stage 2 has products with more advanced features and higher performance, while Stage 3 is for the automotive enthusiasts, who consider their vehicles more than just a mode of transportation. Stage 4, the highest stage, features the highest-performance level products, designed for car audio and music enthusiasts.

To help people with this Stage strategy, Pioneer has also launched an interactive FitGuide, designed to help them find the products with the features they want and fit their vehicle. The FitGuide, available at pioneerfitguide.com, will recommend systems in all categories based on entries for make, model and year.

"If you go online, you can put in any vehicle type or model," Cardenas says. "We'll pull up any vehicle systems and will fit and make recommendations."

The FitGuide also allows people to create, component-by-component, their ideal custom audio systems and sort through products filtered by the features, performance and price specifications they want. The FitGuide also provides photos to show consumers how the systems will look in different vehicles.