ROTOSOUND COMPANY PROFILE Rotosound has traditionally been at the
forefront of this kind of marketing, right back to the days of the business’ founder, Jason’s father, James, where the company’s products were indelibly connected with legendary players such as Jimi Hendrix and The Who. It’s a marketing approach How Junior has continued and considerably expanded on, but does he feel it is still as potent a weapon? “Yes I do and in fact we’ve recently taken on
a new artist relations guy, Dom Fairbanks, who handles several other major brands too. We’ve got a lot of new artists coming along for next year. He’s been backstage at all the festivals this year with his Rotosound goodie bag, so we are still working hard in that area.” As for the state of the trade generally, while How appreciates times are hard (he cites a record number of shops having recently closed in his nearby Sevenoaks High Street) he thinks the MI sector has an innate resilience, born of having always had to operate close to the edge in a difficult market. “I’ve been quite surprised. I thought we would have more retail casualties than we have had,” he admits. Not that Rotosound hasn’t suffered at the hands of some collapses. “But I guess that’s one of the good things about what we sell – we’re spread thinly over hundreds of shops.” One of the other keys to Rotosound’s recent success has been reaping the rewards of introducing new products. When How originally took up the reins of the family business, his first move was to slash what had become an overburdened catalogue so the company could
focus on the essentials. Recently, though, he has been filling the lines out again, leveraging the benefits of the huge investment made in new production machines, which he builds himself.
COMPLETING THE LINEUP “There were products that we really needed in the range,” he says. “We needed a stainless steel guitar string and a bronze 80/20 string – things that years ago I cut out when I was streamlining. We’ve got our house in order with manufacturing now – with 25 machines that I’ve built myself in the last eight years – so we were at a point where we could bring out these other products. We introduced the Nexus coated strings and several others lines that we needed to have.” Have Nexus sales eaten into Rotosound’s
traditional string market? “No, it’s just added to our sales. We were up 18 per cent last year and that increase was mainly on guitar strings – electric and acoustic. The bass string market seems very difficult to expand on, so it’s been guitar string sales that have been increasing.” Scratch the surface and there is a degree of
frustration beneath. Asked what message he’d most like to get out to retailers, How says he’d suggest they’d look at their string walls, decide where they are making the most profit and – importantly – support a British company. He adds that a while ago he issued an open invitation to retailers to visit his Sevenoaks factory to see for themselves how well Rotosound strings are made, but only received two takers, which he found disappointing.
“I think now is probably more important than
any time to buy British. If you can support a British product – why wouldn’t you? I’ve got shops that most people haven’t even heard of that are doing ten grand a year with us – in some cases tiny little shops – and yet you get other big shops that are hardly doing anything. But I can’t complain really, we’ve been up every year for the past ten years and I suppose you can’t ask for more than that, can you?” 2011 promises to see a revamped range of
accessories from Rotosound, but what about strings? Can he see any exciting new developments coming along in the string market in the foreseeable future? “I think we’re pretty much covered. You start
getting into the realms of bullshit beyond a point,” he says with a smile. “How much can you pull the wool over people’s eyes?” So there will be no new cryogenically frozen
Rotosound strings boiled in organic unicorn pee to ensure everlasting tone? “Um, no,” he laughs. Jason How is a rare blend – a practical hands-
Rotosound’s marketing approach shows it makes no secret of being proud of its British heritage
on engineer, yet with a flair for, and appreciation of marketing, which is essential when selling a product that is impossible to demonstrate the advantages of, without the customer buying it first. He is also running one of the UK’s few remaining exporting, manufacturing businesses in the MI industry. As the UK approaches what could be a troubled year, that makes Rotosound’s continued good health and prosperity of prime importance to the industry as a whole. ROTOSOUND: 01732 450838
80% Hi-Tech Carbon Fibre fabric & 20% composite
Weight approx 3.5 kg
Detachable Neoprene rucksack straps
MMX quick release clasps (x6)
Padded suspension system
Hand stitched soft leather handles
Accessory pocket Bow holders (x2) Adjustable side pads
Protective spike plate & pad
Additional padding behind scroll
RRP: £750
0845 0945 659
hot pink, polar white, deep green, carbon grey, dolphin blue, olive, very deep red, very dark blue or very deep purple
UK Distributors
tomandwill.com WWW.MI-PRO.CO.UK
UK Sales Manager Clive Guthrie 07817 643581
Email:
clive.guthrie@
tomandwill.com miPRO DECEMBER 2010 39
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