In a culture where "new trends" are recycled from 20 years ago, it can be hard to find a personal, original idea for your company or brand. A business I have had my eye on for some time, a Swedish luxury music developer called, “teenage engineering” (founded 2005) that I believe has taken company branding to a new level. They make audio devices like Audio mixers, speakers, recording devices, microphones, Basically everything you would need to start your DJ career and more.
I stumbled upon them on TikTok one day a few years ago. The post that I originally saw was for their OB-4 speakers. The video highlighted the features of this speaker, Including physical knobs to turn, a small turntable on the top of the box allows you to interact with the music in real time, whether that be on the radio, connected to bluetooth, or playing a CD. When was the last time a tech developer added a spot for a CD?
I personally do not make music, I like to think I could one day, maybe that’s why I have followed them for over 2 years. Honestly I was most interested in their innovative ideas and how they marketed them. The value of this company comes from their out of the box ideas, Teenage engineering is a very stylized brand that perfectly combines the past, the future, and play. Each of their products has the same feel as an Nintendo game. While you might be able to find other audio/beat mixers for less money, Teenage engineering promises a visually satisfying experience with fantastic quality.
Teenage engineering promotes a lot of their social media platforms, one look at their instagram page will let you know they vibe they are trying capture. The majority of the comments under these posts are from positive fans, or just interested people passing through. Very few negative comments, the small amount followed common themes; too expensive comes up a lot, a lot of people wanted to know about a recent situation the company was dealing with. "Are you guys going to address the R1 scam situation?" says one commenter on the public instagram account. I also noticed commenters asking about how the product was made, or curious about some of the aspects of the devices. "Can we know more about the story behind these, I mean the process etc? I did not find much but I really like these." unfortunately these questions are left unanswered. I have yet to see Teenage engineering reply to one of their comments, and that is a big waste of personal promotion.
Teenage engineering promotes their products through their socials, they also are constantly reposting the music made by their consumers. This positive feedback works double time promoting their products and encouraging others to create. Each of their instruments encourage creativity and exploration, I think their name is appropriate for how they advertise.
When it comes to promoting their product line Teenage engineering works very hard to advertise the new additions to their lineup. With great photographs highlighting each product, It leaves you wanting to hold and play with each item. When releasing the "medieval, Ep 1320" a sampling board with a medieval look and sound to it, the company traveled to a the island of Gotland, off the coast of Sweden. Purposefully coinciding with the islands "Medieval week". The promotional shots from this photoshoot are remarkable. They run fun filled story, combining the medieval with the future creates a sense of fantasy and an escape from the everyday. The marketing challenge that Teenage engineering faces is the fact that they are more of a high-brow brand, not every musician is going to go to their website. I am sure there are "more cost effective" brands in the world. Teenage engineering is taking their brand a step further and creating a market of their own. Making visually appealing and well crafted products, that tickle your aesthetic bone.
Like I said earlier Teenage engineering does not interact a lot in the comments of their instagram, they do not have a TikTok account any longer, and are barely on Twitter/X. It seems they primarily promote through their instagram and on their website, they also have a newsletter you can reach through their instagram, which is generally about the software updates. I think they should be replying to comments, they have a fair amount of questions on each of their posts. Since they are a primarily online store, I think they should hire someone to go through instagram/twitter/reddit comments etc.
If I were the brand manager of teenage engineering I would work on getting a newsletter out every month instead of sporadically like they do know, I think covering larger areas in the newsletter could be beneficial, like recent trends and more. I would also create a group to go through and respond to comments and questions that the consumers have. I know that they are a Swedish brand so they might have all this stuff but in Swedish, if that's the case interpreters should work to create new versions of websites.
I learned that creating and maintaining a brand is difficult, and that brands should stay on top of their PR. Every second someone is influenced by what we see/hear so letting negative comments rot in the comments untouched is a great way to deter future consumers. Social media is more important now than ever, if you don't keep up you might get beat.
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