www.psneurope.com 44
Percentage of revenue growth in 2011, in which MLA played a major part
King: “I went back to the
company history and there were things that stood out early on, like when we were providing proper PA systems for the first time to the supergroups of the ’70s. The early installation work in the cinema, too. I got it from the engineers I spoke to: all shared the essence of ‘an audience first’ mentality.” Hence the new mission
statement, ‘Uniting the Audience’ to describe Martin’s values. Indeed, and coming somewhat
full circle, the Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array – a system which carries audio to every corner of the venue and every person in the room, to truly unite the audience – is the very embodiment of the statement. But this Big Idea doesn’t pigeonhole the company to one technology or product. “Audience is the key,” emphasises King. “If we make those guys happy, we create more successful tours and venues. ‘Uniting the Audience’ underpins what we do, lets us do that in a more consistent manner,
and it’s something that people and the wider industry can buy into as an idea.” “This is a natural evolution to
the brand, rather than something we are forcing on people,” he adds. The reaction has been positive
all round, says Taylor, inside the company and out. It takes the company further away from being known as the ‘Best Kept Secret’, as Taylor suggests. King worked with an agency to put together a 90-second clip – available on YouTube – alongside new print advertising materials and a refreshed website which encapsulates the new mission statement. It is, as Taylor says later, a means of putting into words something that’s “a bit gut-feel”. This will appear in all Martin Audio marketing campaigns from now on. But marketing is just a part of a second set of objectives, what Taylor moots as “a growing maturity” at the company and a requirement to elevate certain areas of the business. “My view of
what a Tier One supplier is,” he begins, “must be consistent through every activity that we do And so inevitably marketing and messaging is one area of that.” Then, an admission: “The way
we’ve delivered the message before has never been consistent with the quality of the product.” In a nutshell, Taylor now wants everything about Martin Audio to say quality, quality, quality: the sales, the advertising, the R&D,
the factory staff, the lot. In the past, where things were just ‘good’, he wants them to be the best they can be. “I’m looking into investing so
that the whole delivery of product – from the cardboard box, the materials, the manuals and everything else – is consistent.” Processes and systems will
follow to support company growth. And this is not an incremental thing, either: sales of
October 2013 l 37
livereport
the MLA contributed to a 44% revenue growth in 2011, even more than the impressive 25% average throughout the late ’90s and into the mid Noughties. Martin Audio’s most successful product has more than shifted expectation up a gear or two. “It’s more of an internal focus;
recognition from the guys in the factory that we’re building the audio equivalent of race cars, that they are a Formula One team and as such they take an immense pride in what they’re producing.” Then there’s a third strand to the plan. “We look at the markets rather
than products. From a list of about 20 markets that we sell to, we are concentrating on evolving the optimum solution for the top four or five that we know we have the best tools to deliver to. “We’ll be a bit more ‘solution
savvy’,” says King. “We can’t do everything, everywhere.” Gone then is the Martin Audio
A still from the YouTube ‘Uniting the Audience’ video
that was, as Taylor puts it, “too opportunistic in the past.”
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