Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, Sennheiser has a rich heritage of putting sound first and creating meaningful sound experiences. The German-based audio specialist understands there is a big difference between an average audio experience and a sublime one.
However, unlike a TV’s picture, sound quality is intangible and subjective. Very few consumers have the knowledge or tools to judge the difference when it comes to buying headphones, so often end up settling for the mediocre.
The problem is particularly clear in retail - demo experiences are generally poor - you’re lucky to get your hands on working product playing a basic loop of songs. So it’s no surprise most consumers leave frustrated and confused.
There are tracks out there like ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears that are rumoured to be good for pushing headphones to their limits. However, no track has ever been created with the sole purpose of doing exactly that.
Knowing that premium sound quality was made up of three crucial elements - richness (hearing the whole frequency range), clarity (hearing all the subtle details) and soundstage (feeling as if you’re in the front row of the concert hall), Sennheiser briefed MullenLowe Open to create an immersive audio experience that brought these elements to life for Sennheiser’s prospective customers.
Together with music composer and sound designer Tim Cowie, MullenLowe Open and Sennheiser collaborated to create a perfectly curated piece of music, mixed in Sennheiser’s AMBEO immersive 3D audio technology, specifically designed to test these three elements in any pair of headphones. MullenLowe Open also created a digital hub, where consumers could listen to and download the track, as well as find more educational content on how to identify Richness, Clarity and Soundstage on the headphones they are using.
This campaign was planned to launch at South by South West in March 2020, followed by the roll out of an immersive in-store experience across Sennhesier’s retail partners. Unfortunately the event was cancelled due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, so MullenLowe Open & Mediahub quickly pivoted to create innovative media partnerships with VICE and CNET to examine what good sound quality really sounds like. Now, as we slowly emerge into the new normal and retailers begin to open their doors once again, the in-store experience will take shape.