The world’s oldest and arguably most prestigious and cutting-edge consumer electronics brand will turn 90 this November, but the celebration kicked off a few months back with the launch of Bang & Olufsen’s “Love Affair” collection.

 

With its aluminum components rendered in distinctive anodized rose-gold finish instead of the usual brushed silver treatment, the “Love Affair” collection consists of such iconic and state-of-the-art products as the BeoLab 18, BeoPlay A9, BeoVision 11, BeoPlay H6 (top-of-the-line headset), BeoVision Avant (the flexible, moving TV) and BeoRemote One.

 

“We picked these six products because they best define and represent the brand’s DNA and what we stand for,” said Marie Kristine Schmidt, Bang & Olufsen’s VP for brand design and marketing.

 

Calling its 90th anniversary collection “Love Affair” may sound strange to those unfamiliar with Bang & Olufsen, but it makes perfect sense to people behind the brand for several reasons.

 

While white gold represents friendship and yellow gold means fidelity, rose gold, according to tradition, symbolizes love.

 

“Bang & Olufsen is truly driven by passion,” said Schmidt. “We’re a proud and persistent company. When people ask us what makes Bang & Olufsen unique, I think the unanimous answer is its creative engineers.”

 

It’s also a passion brand, not a rational brand, Schmidt added. It’s a brand people within and outside the company fall in love with.

 

Admittedly, the novel features the brand introduces regularly in a crowded and competitive consumer electronics market have helped propel it to the top.

 

Over the decades, it has introduced some of the coolest, jaw-dropping appliances such as the first TV remote that doubled as a light dimmer in the early ’80s; the handsome BeoSound 9000, an upright and visible six-CD player, in the mid-’90s; and the Avant, the first and so far only remote-controlled TV that moves and repositions itself based on the viewer’s wishes.

 

“We found out that when a product reacts to people in a physical way, people start to connect with the product on an emotional level,” said Schmidt.

 

Bang & Olufsen also pioneered in a new technology called the acoustic lens, which allows speakers to spread sound across a 180-degree angle, enabling the listener to move about the room and not stay fixed in a sweet spot to maximize listening pleasure.

 

Solutions

 

But novelty for novelty’s sake isn’t what the brand is all about. Instead, it’s dictated by how people live and not by what they want.

 

“We try to make meaningful solutions that tend to last longer because in reality people’s needs don’t change that fast,” Schmidt added.

 

During a recent two-day tour of its headquarters and main factory in Struer, Denmark, journalists from Bang & Olufsen’s emerging markets were given a general overview of how its products are made and perfected, including processes involved in its customized aluminum treatment facility.

 

“We’ve gone so far on the design side that we’ve had a hard time finding the right partners to supply us with high-quality aluminum in big volumes,” said Schmidt. “We had to build our own innovation plant to supply ourselves with the right core material, which is aluminum.”

 

The facility is a kilometer away from the original site where engineers Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen started the company in 1925. A smaller office in Copenhagen is in charge of marketing, while a second factory in the Czech Republic manufactures the parts.

 

While certain Bang & Olufsen components are sourced in developing countries, major ones, including assembly and packaging, are all done in Europe.

 

“Svend was the more flamboyant and marketing-savvy of the two, while Peter was the creative inventor, the guy with the crazy ideas,” said Schmidt.

 

In essence, Bang & Olufsen, a brand that’s very much about “dualities,” reflects the sensibilities of its two founders.

 

“It’s a brand that’s very much about technology and design, and the passion with which we apply technology and execute it through our finished products’ designs,” said Schmidt.

 

In 2005, Bang & Olufsen, which became a publicly listed company in the ’70s, expanded its portfolio by providing built-in sound systems for luxury cars such as Audi. It has since added BMW, Aston Martin and Mercedes-Benz to its growing list of clientele.

 

Even after selling its automotive business to Harman a few years ago, Bang & Olufsen, in close collaboration with the American company, still does sound systems for Audi and other high-end car brands.

 

Brand awareness

 

In 2012, it launched B&O Play, a bridge line consisting of more affordable products like colorful headsets, Bluetooth speakers and portable sound systems for younger, more mobile customers.

 

B&O Play products are sold at Bang & Olufsen’s 600 stores across the globe and—to make them more accessible to consumers—through third-party retailers like department stores and gadget shops, including Apple stores.

 

“Through B&O Play, we also create brand awareness by bringing the Bang & Olufsen brand out to a broader target audience,” said Schmidt.

 

As a design-driven company, Bang & Olufsen also cultivates special relationships with selected guest designers such as Torsten Valeur, the Danish designer behind such iconic Bang & Olufsen products as the BeoPlay 8000 upright speaker with fanned-out wooden grills.

 

Not only does it occupy very little space or footprint, the BeoPlay 8000 (which later inspired the creation of BeoPlay 18) reminds certain fans and critics of Bang & Olufsen’s Scandinavian roots with its minimalist interplay of cold and warm elements in the form of brushed aluminum and lacquered wood panels.

 

The soft-spoken Valeur met with journalists in Bang & Olufsen’s flagship store in Copenhagen.

 

“It’s not about interviewing people directly,” said Valeur. “As a designer, you have to soak everything up. You get the most unlikely ideas by talking to friends, traveling and by simply keeping an eye out on things.”

Knowing its strengths and collaborating with the right companies, including, for instance, Apple and Samsung for its TVs, have also served Bang & Olufsen well.

 

Now that everything is going digital, consumer electronics companies that could “figure out meaning in the technology chaos out there,” stand a good chance of surviving, said Schmidt.

 

“If we try to do everything alone, we won’t have 90 more years,” she said. “We’d be dead. Bang & Olufsen isn’t trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. What we try to do is understand the customer, strike deals with the right partners and double down on what we’re good at.”

 

 

Exclusively distributed in the Philippines by Living Innovations Corp., Bang & Olufsen’s showroom is at 2/L, Edsa Shangri-La Plaza Mall’s East Wing. Tel. 654-2240; e-mail [email protected].