Creative Technology: Introducing Stage 360 To The Indian Market

A multinational technology company based in Singapore, Creative Technology was founded in 1981. Since then, the company has been working to transform and revolutionize the interaction between people and their computers and other digital devices they use regularly. It started by creating the Sound Blaster sound card in 1989, which forever changed the world of computers by setting the standards for PC audio, to the development of new-age audio technology and hardware, which is redefining how people enjoy sound and music. 

The development of groundbreaking technologies like Super X-Fi Headphone Holography and computational audio intensive techniques have put Creative ahead of the many giants working in the field of sound. That many of these leading companies now take cue from Creative is a sign of the times to come. With Creative in a leading role, the industry is now headed towards a new ‘golden age’, one that will be marked by cinematic audio experience backed by disruptive technologies that bring quantum change instead of incremental improvement, and impossibly elegant designs made possible by the impeccable and unbeaten creativity of those who envisioned it. 

From its early days, when very few knew about it, to today, when over 400 million people trust the company and its products, Creative has earned the reputation of being a leading innovator in the personal digital entertainment market. This reputation, a result of its consistent investments in both technology and creativity over the last four decades, as its name also says, has allowed the company to enter new markets and carve out a space for itself in no time. It has done so in the past in South East Asia, and has since repeated it in different parts of the world. And when Creative Technology decided to take a plunge into the Indian market, My Story, as a leading premier brand for public relations in Asia and North America, was a natural partner and ally for it. 

The Task At Hand

Creative Technology was making a debut in India’s sound and music equipment market with its Dolby Atmos surround sound-equipped soundbar Stage 360.

MyStory PR was entrusted with the task of helping Creative break into the vast and fragmented Indian market. Among other things, Creative Technology had to be introduced to the Indian audiences, an overwhelming majority of whom had not used the company’s products in the past. 

More specifically, MyStory had to get people talking about the soundbar – Stage 360 – and explain to sound and music enthusiasts in India why this was different from anything they had before. This involved both, talking about the technology that went into the development of the Stage 360 soundbar and the creativity that allowed its creators to envision a machine like it and bring it alive from the drawing board. Most importantly, it was critical to ensure that, while talking about the high-end tech that it carries, a potential buyer does not feel that the product was too technical or complicated for their use. We had to strike a perfect balance between the technology and design aspects while discussing dozens of other features and advantages that the Stage 360 soundbar offers.

The Opportunities

With India now the fifth largest economy in the world, its 1.4 billion people now have more disposable income than ever before in their lifetime, and this fact will continue to remain true for decades to come. History has shown that the rise in disposable income leads to greater spending on entertainment — a phenomenon that has been witnessed in China since at least the late 2000s. In a country that has a thriving culture of music from time immemorial, made more accessible to the middle class over the last six to seven decades by the easy to consume mass productions from Bollywood and regional cinema and the penetration of internet, music remains one of the most common sources of entertainment. 

This is not just a narrative — numbers tell the same story. Consider, for instance, India’s music instrument and hardware industry. It is projected to grow at a whooping rate of 12.20 per cent every year in the period between 2022 and 2026. Even currently, India has one of the largest music instrument industries, with revenue touching $5 billion. This suggests that India as an emerging market offers great potential to Creative to grow and expand.

With a billion internet users and nearly 850 million smartphone users by 2030, India will remain an attractive market for the foreseeable future and the companies which are investing now in creating brand awareness and carving out a substantial market share for themselves will reap the benefits soon. 

With the rise of over-the-top media service or OTT and people increasingly choosing in-home entertainment over cinema, the use of personal sound equipment like headphones, soundbars, etc will only grow.  

The Challenges

India offers unique opportunities in the sound and music industry, but the challenges for companies coming to the country are equally unique too.

One, despite the meteoric rise of India as an economy and the growth of the middle class, most Indians remain reluctant (not unable or unwilling) to invest in high-end sound equipment. The availability of low-quality but relatively cheap audio products dumped in the Indian market by manufacturers from China and Vietnam adds to this problem. Therefore, the first challenge for the campaign was to convince people to choose Creative’s Stage 360 over cheaper soundbars. 

Two, the Indian market remains fragmented into regions, which makes it difficult to win the battle of perception with one narrative. While a user in India’s northern part may consider cost and style to be the most important factors, one in south India may be more interested in cutting edge technology and innovation. 

Therefore, convincing everyone with a single narrative does not work in India. Every brand needs multiple narratives which appeal to different sets of people, making it easier to reach out to people across the length and breadth of the country. Add to it the fact that India, as a market, is very different from others. Using a model that may have worked elsewhere is not a solution in this country. Thus, the second challenge was to create a narrative around Stage 360 that is rooted in the truth and appeals to people everywhere. 

Three, for a country as large as India, there is no single newspaper or magazine that everyone follows or has access to. This means that dozens if not hundreds of channels of communication have to be employed to put the message across. When it comes to India, it is important to sort out the logistics of awareness creation before working on the logistics of product delivery. Thus, we had to identify the medium that will have the best return on investment in terms of reach. While digital media rightly appeared to be the obvious solution, the real challenge lay in identifying the exact platforms to be approached for outreach. It is pertinent to mention here that India has over a thousand online news outlets. 

Four, what made the task at hand more difficult was the fact that a large section of potential buyers would be discovering Creative Technology for the first time. Their interaction with the product as potential buyers will shape their perception of the brand over the next few decades. To get it right, we had to ensure that the Creative Technology brand came out looking good while the attention remained on the product, Stage 360 soundbar. We had to shape the perception of the brand in the minds of the people, not just promote Stage 360 as a product. 

The Plan And Implementation 

The challenges in India are unique, but they aren’t insurmountable. MyStory worked out an eminently implementable solution for each of these challenges. 

One, to convince people to invest in State 360, MyStory presented the soundbar as an affordable solution to the high-end music equipment that remains out of reach for most Indians. Take, for example, the article on Stage 360 authored by our in-house team and published in the Hindustan Times. 

The article begins by pitching the Creative soundbar as an affordable piece of equipment which comes equipped with numerous cutting edge technologies. 

“Singapore-based Creative Technology, one of the world’s largest manufacturers and sellers of personal digital entertainment devices, is making a debut in the Indian market with its affordable, Dolby Atmos surround sound-equipped soundbar Stage 360,” the team wrote in the piece. 

Further, a conscious effort was made to explain to the readers that the soundbar, despite being available to them in the ‘affordable category,’ packs the technologies that they would otherwise get only in the premium segment. 

Sample this line from the piece MyStory published in TheWeek Magazine. 

“Although marketed as an affordable soundbar, Stage 360 soundbar is laced with premium features. The first of these, and one which makes it unique, is that the soundbar comes with Dolby Atmos, a premium technology developed by Dolby Laboratories…,” our team wrote in the piece, adding, “Most soundbars in the affordable category in India do not have Dolby Atmos, and it is this fact that makes Stage 360 quite appealing to the Indian market.”

Two, in our deliberations stretching over two days and several meetings, we worked out the attributes of Stage 360 to be highlighted in the published material. One key consideration during these discussions was the need to highlight both technology and design advantages of the product.

In the Hindustan Times article, for example, MyStory divided the piece into multiple sections, labeling the one on technology as ‘powered with technology’ and the one on design as ‘empowered with aesthetic’. 

“Like the best-in-class technology, Creative’s Stage 360 soundbar has appealing style and definition. The streamlined design and sturdy build of the soundbar complement the living space decor when connected to a television via an HDMI ARC cable, taking away cable clutter. It is the perfect minimalist  soundbar for your living room,” the team wrote in the piece in the Hindustan Times. 

The focus on design remained a constant throughout the campaign. Consider this piece provided by MyStory to India’s largest news wire agency ANI. 

“Like the technology it packs, Stage 360’s aesthetics are also unbeatable.”

Three, the secret behind a successful campaign is a diverse audience. Given the diversity in India, the only way to reach out to a large number of potential buyers was to make the outreach as wide as possible. Our team kept this at the back of their minds when they were thinking about the publications in which the articles could go. These include some of India’s largest newspaper portals, like the Hindustan Times, TheWeek, ANI, ThePrint, Gizbot and MidDay. Put together, these six publications alone reach millions of Indian readers, which means that the information about Stage 360 and Creative Technology was disseminated to a large section. While the Hindustan Times is the second-largest newspaper in the country, TheWeek is the largest circulated English news magazine in India.  

We’ll look at the reach of some of the prominent publications in more detail in the section discussing the results of the campaign. 

Four, special emphasis was laid on the fact that Creative Technology is a leading developer of cutting-edge technology in the personal digital entertainment segment. The company’s record, from being the maker of the revolutionary Sound Blaster sound card in 1989 to the disruptive Super X-Fi Headphone Holography in 2018, has been highlighted to show how it has been at the forefront of making the sound entertainment experience better for decades. The aim was to ensure potential buyers that they are not buying a product but becoming a member of an ever advancing ecosystem with Stage 360. 

Results

While Creative Technology’s sales data  has not been put out in public, there are other ways to gauge the success of the campaign run by MyStory. 

One, the campaign gave Creative Technology an unprecedented outreach to music enthusiasts and others. With some of India’s leading publications and technology review portals publishing articles written by the MyStory team, the information about the product as well as the brand was disseminated to millions of people around India through various publications. 

Here are some of the publications which carried the articles and their reach. 

Together, these eight publications ensured that a large section of India’s news consuming population found out about Creative Technology and Stage 360. 

Two, to cater to the diversity of news mediums in India, we at MyStory ensured that the news of Stage 360’s availability and the description of its features was published in regional news outlets. While publications like the Hindustan Times and Zee5 are read across India, some regional websites, like the popular Odisha Post, have large readership in their respective regions. 

Here is a list of regional media outlets that announced the launch of stage 360. 

North

South

East 

West

The coverage in these regional media publications and news outlets ensured that the awareness gap about Creative Technology and the launch of Stage 360 soundbar in various parts of India was addressed effectively. 

Three, the effect of this media outreach organized by MyStory can be gauged from the reviews and ratings many users have left on Flipkart, the online retailer which sells the Stage 360 soundbar in India. 

At the time of the writing of this report, users and left at least 33 ratings and 10 reviews about the platform. The soundbar has received a high approval rating of 4.2. It has a rating of 4.5 for sound quality, which is among the highest in the segment; 4.6 for bass, 4.5 for design and built and 4.6 for connectivity. At least 22 of the 33 ratings of the product on Flipkart are ‘five star’. 

The ten reviews of the product are also overwhelmingly positive. 

“This product [Creative’s Stage 360] is having superb dolby atmos effect at this price. I have been using creative for a long time and this is one of the best speakers from them in this price range. Go for it,” reads one review. 

 

Another happy user of Stage 360 says, “If you are looking for a budget Dolby Atmos Soundbar then you can blindly go for it. It is compact in size, unlike other sound bars which need a wide space to put or mount.”

Conclusion

Creative’s rich legacy and its consistent investments in innovation make it an attractive option for Indian users, who tend to prefer proven brands with a track record of quality delivery. The company’s ability to provide leading sound technologies in Stage 360 at a reasonable price in the Indian market has given it an edge over other sound equipment manufacturers. These qualities helped MyStory to pitch Stage 360 as a perfect fit for the Indian market and nudge sound and music enthusiasts in India to try the soundbar. 

With the use of mass media and widely read national and local publications, MyStory was able to build an outreach for Creative Technology that allowed the company to register in the minds of millions of potential buyers. While this outreach has resulted in better sales – positive reviews on Flipkart are a reflection of the same – in the short term, it has also built a good image of Creative Technology as a brand in the Indian market. This will have a compounding effect on the company’s business in India over the next few years.