• How to energize a stagnant category?

• Look for opportunities to leverage retail by studying customers and sales staff in a wide variety of music stores and locations

• Updated longstanding industry beliefs about musician-customers—they actually think and behave like ordinary retail consumers

• Led to new merchandising, new packaging, and new in-store displays that give meaningful guidance toward purchase

Shopping for mics: "Testing, 1, 2, 3..."

Shure, the leading manufacturer of microphones for musical performance, found itself in a stagnant category. To help spark sales, they were seeking ways to better leverage the retail environment as a marketing medium. By spending days at a time in music stores around the country, the research was able to get inside the heads of both customers and retail staff, revealing the disconnects between the customer's mindset and the retail setting. Despite the longstanding industry belief that these stores should target technically astute musicians and sound engineers, most music retail customers think and act like ordinary retail consumers. The program's final strategy guided Shure towards a more consumer-oriented retail experience. Introduced at NAMM in 2002, this includes a reorganization of the product line, new packaging designs, and new in-store displays that are giving meaningful guidance toward purchase.