Quality and nostalgia is potent mix

Making mixtapes on blank cassettes was a rite of passage for teenagers in the Eighties and early Nineties. And most people’s musical masterpieces were likely to be created on a TDK tape, recorded over and over with new tunes from Radio 1’s Top 40 Show. But the digital era has eroded this teenage tradition and now young people are likely to download their favourite tracks from iTunes.

TDK’s solution is to turn the nostalgia that people still have for the brand into a platform to market a series of high-end digital audio hardware products.

It will be unveiling its new boombox-style hi-fi, modern turntable and premium headphones towards the end of this year. And in the run-up to the event, it is attempting to create a new buzz around the brand by using celebrity power to extract people’s memories of TDK and making mixtapes.
Chart band The Strokes and hip hop star Nas are the first faces fronting a special TDK microsite. They will feature in an online film, recalling the mixtapes they made when they were younger.

Visitors to the website will be able to listen to a selection of mixtape-style music streamed from an image of an old cassette. Other music industry personalities have been invited to submit blogs about their memories of making mixtapes, while the public can also contribute posts.

The revitalisation of TDK as a brand is the result of storage business Imation buying TDK Corporation’s recorded media arm, Life on Record. It is this division, under the guidance of Imation, which aims to apply the TDK name to new products. Matthieu Valk, Imation’s EMEA marketing and communications manager, explains: “We’re bringing life back into the brand and reminding people about it. But it’s not about them saying ’I love

TDK’, it’s them talking about the experience of making mixtapes when they were growing up, maybe taping off the radio as a teenager.”
The website won’t immediately allude to the new hardware, but once the products are unveiled, images will be displayed on the site. TDK is also looking to extend its artist collaborations for a series of worldwide branded gigs to be held to complement the product launch.

“We wanted to work with artists that were relevant, but would still have memories of making a mixtape. So we didn’t want to work with any really new, young bands. It was about finding artists with mass appeal as well as appealing to the urban male ’audiophiles’ we have identified as our target market,” Valk says.

When Imation took over TDK, it set out to identify the purpose of the brand in its portfolio. The first step was to establish what the brand’s value was in terms of global awareness. Despite a lack of major activity for some time, the level of brand awareness remained high – perhaps thanks to collective memories of making mixtapes.

“The brand has been dormant for quite some time. [Former parent company] TDK Corporation had a huge research and development facility and made great products, but had no focus on putting them in the consumer space,” Valk claims. “But there is still huge recognition and appreciation of the brand.”

A brand awareness survey undertaken in 2008 revealed positive scores, including 77% in the US, 78% in the UK, and percentages in the mid to high 80s for Germany, Italy, Australia and Brazil. TDK Corporation’s home market of Japan scored 97%.

The research also highlighted that men aged 28 to 40 had the highest affinity with the brand, making it a logical market for TDK to target.

TDK conducted focus groups in Sydney, Tokyo, Berlin, London, and San Francisco among “guys whose music collection is the centrepiece of their room” to observe their interaction with their music collections and systems before inviting their friends over and then taking notes on what they look for in a music shopping experience.

“It hasn’t been about just creating a product and pushing it into the market and seeing if it works,” says Valk. “We have spent the past two years doing in-depth customer research to let our audience speak to us and define what they need.”

The study concluded this audience has a strong connection to their music, but the rise of digital has removed a feeling of being really involved with the tunes.

Valk says: “Everything these days is digital, but these people were lacking that ’analogue’ feeling of turning knobs or changing settings for bass and treble.” The new digital range features analogue-style knobs that can control various elements of the music, leading TDK to coin the term “digilog” – which will feature prominently in marketing around the products.

Alongside the website and gig activity, TDK plans to distribute a viral video of the new boombox product in action on city streets. It has already filmed young men carrying the boombox around New York, in the old over-the-shoulder style, and is considering a similar film in London, perhaps on the Underground. Such activity will revolve around building a new hype around the brand before the products are released, says Valk.

Although TDK has no plans for a mainstream media campaign to push its rebirth, there will be one billboard in New York and there are plans for radio giveaways.

But could something as simple as invoking the memory of making a mixtape be powerful enough to pit the brand against the established market leaders in the home audio and cinema category (see table)? Valk admits this will be some task, but argues that TDK’s products are niche and will be presented in stores that way.

He says. “We are in talks with retailers about taking exclusive store space, running training courses for sales people and creating an in-store experience so customers can listen to the product. We won’t be competing with the likes of Sony, Philips and Panasonic in the same space in stores, and we aren’t aiming to do the same volumes as those brands.”

During TDK’s period of learning and strategising, it took notes from Lacoste, says Valk. About ten years ago, the fashion brand was suffering from its presence in discount retailers. As a result, it increased its product range from summer wear to all-round lifestyle wear to rebuild itself and become a premium name.

“We looked at a couple of brands that have gone back to the core of what people appreciated about them, taking the good elements from their heritage and working with that,” says Valk.

Perhaps going back to the core of what TDK stands for – a love of music combined with personal involvement – could help not only bring the brand back for 2010 but help it carve out a new niche in the audio hardware space.

VIEWPOINTS

Company share of home audio and cinema category by retail volume