Create a seamless experience so sound lovers can adopt and use B&O products with ease.

01. Our Aprroach

The Pitch

We proposed a mobile app paired with an online platform for Bang & Olufsen that facilitates product adoption and use, creating a personalized experience for individual customers that will foster an ongoing association with the brand.

The Initial Business Problem

Bang & Olufsen is one of the leading luxury audio-visual companies in the world, not only for the quality of their products but for the intangible value that comes with their products. They invest so much of their money into innovation and creating futuristic products but they forget that creating a unique experience for the customer can do so much more. They show glimpses of consideration for the end-user and how their products are used after leaving the store but haven’t achieved a cohesive system that works for everyone.

Insights & Opportunities

As a team, we decided that we should approach Band & Olufsen as customers to see what type of service and in-store experience is currently provided. We visited their website as that usually is the first touchpoint and gathered any relevant information. Their was a clear decision made by Bang & Olufsen and that was to provide very little information online and guide potential customers in-store where their experience would be in control of the employees. We understood why the decision was made but was not convinced of how the only information guiding people in-store was a subtle link that would prompt a dialogue box with the nearest store’s information. It’s not a secret that the physical store is slowly becoming irrelevant which means there was an opportunity for us to create a connected experience from the moment a potential customer visits the website until they are using the product in their own home.

We visited the local Bang & Olufsen store as paying customers to really see what information was provided compared to what was available online, to see who was their core demographic and how employees go about selling $5,000+ Tv’s. We were able to talk to an extremely helpful salesman who proceeded to take us through the buying process. Our key takeaways were that the service provided was top-notch and extremely informative but there was a massive paradigm shift when it came to the control of the products. The salesman controlled every aspect of our experience which was a little unexpected and in some ways shocking. Throughout our entire time there, we did not touch or use any Bang & Olufsen products, the salesman handled everything. We thought that this radiated distrust and that we had an opportunity to introduce some transparency that would alleviate some of the tension. We wanted to give the customer knowledge as well as control during the buying process. This came to form as curated content that is available on the customers phone and able to be connected to any product in store.

Looking beyond the in-store experience, we explored the capability of most Bang & Olufsen products and were amazed by the quality, however we discovered that the remotes were overwhelming and hard to learn. To simplify the learning curve that their products had, we decided to only show controls that were often used or relevant at that specific time. Another piece of this puzzle was the adoption of new products. Bang & Olufsen strives to create a connected home for their customers, we thought we should integrate that desire into our product. To create a way to easily adopt new Bang & Olufsen products, we needed to set up a back-end server that would store any customer information and set up a way to remember information ie. name, customer number and most importantly, any B&O products that they own. We wanted to leverage this information and provide them with a smart profile which would determine what controls were available when using specific products.

As we take a step back from creating an app that will serve any needs that may arise when using and adopting Bang & Olufsen products in the home, we wanted to create a tether between the customer and brand. The app itself acts as if it‘s a personal identity for the customer within the B&O tribe and potentially cements itself as a frequent tool that is used to facilitate their audio/visual experiences at home and in-store.