• by Aaron Baar , October 8, 2017

Music should be both satisfying and easy to access. With Sonos’ new Sonos One player, it’s both. 

Having built itself up as the product to bring music into all parts of the home, the brand is now touting its voice-control capabilities (though Amazon’s Alexa), showing how it fosters connections through connectivity. 

“This campaign showcases how the right song at the right moment has the power to shift and deepen your experience; with voice services, you can do that instantly, without getting out your phone and becoming prey to all the distractions that technology brings,” Dmitri Siegel, Sonos’ vice president of global brand, tells Marketing Daily. 

The new marketing campaign plays up the brand’s deep connection to music, partnering with many musicians who don’t typically work with brands (such as Pearl Jam, Radiohead and Arcade Fire). Print and digital ads use headlines tied to the artists or some of their most-recognized work (such as “From work to Kraftwerk” or “From screen time to Hammer Time.”) 

“We weren’t just looking to borrow the ‘cool’ of their name, we were showing how their work alters the mood and emotion of a scene,” Siegel says. 

Getting permissions from the 22 different artists in the campaign was a “massive undertaking” for the brand, made possible by having built an extensive artist engagement team, and agency partners Cornerstone and Anomaly, Siegel says. 

“It’s our broadest, and most comprehensive collaboration with the creative community yet,” he says. “It’s necessary for us, because our product is built first and foremost for the experience of music.”

A video element shows off the new voice-control capabilities, using the “from … to” idea. One video depicts a couple struggling with putting newborn twins to bed. The father asks the speakers to play a relaxing playlist which helps not only the infants, but also the exhausted mother, some much-needed rest. “From sleepless nights to fast asleep,” reads onscreen titles. Other scenarios show a husband turning a late-night of work for his wife in to a midnight date, and a daughter making her despondent father feel better with his wife’s playlist. 

“We very intentionally chose not to highlight the utility or productivity of voice services in the home – that’s not our vision for the “connected home,” Siegel says. “Our vision is to help you become more connected to the people you're there with, encouraging presence of mind in your own home.”

Elsewhere, digital ads depict animated mouths suggesting options (such as “Play Bowie” or “Play my relaxing playlist in the bathroom”) for people to play through their Sonos speakers throughout the house. The brand is targeting music lovers through pre-roll formats and social and behaviorally driven contexts. For example, if a consumer is about to watch a David Bowie video, there is specific creative for that content, Siegel says.

“Our goal is to show up on moments that are relevant to music lovers, and this requires matching the right song or artist to the specific moment,” he says. “It’s a level of targeting and contextual creative I’ve never seen from another brand, but we’re music lovers and we think music lovers will get it.”