Comment: there is no rigorous country-by-country distinction, however, with the exception of Italy and Spain, where unique conditions of economic boom have been identified in the sector, there are micro regions in which the market has common features in terms of complex demand, and also music culture (the total show costs are analyzed).

The Segmentation Matrix

Fig. 1 The segmentation matrix referred to the world Audio Market

The “4 Ps” of X-Treme Operating Marketing
 1. PRODUCT
Since the very beginning of the X-Treme brand product definition phase, the Top Management of the Sound Corporation group have been talking to the technical staff from their new “live” division (founded in 2001) about their intention to create high quality and efficient sound reinforcement systems without compromises and without rivals in the professional audio sector: it was therefore necessary to “push the state-of-the-art hat of professional audio a little forward”.

Amplitude and depth of the range offered
By defining a line as a group of products which present relative affinities to important aspects of production or consumption, it can be said that the various X-Treme brand product lines meet the needs of anyone who has to organize a concert or a live event, either with reproduced or any kind of live music (from classical to hard rock), from small dimensions (up to 250 people) to great dimensions (over 50,000 people).

Wideness of range means the number of different product lines offered: the X-Treme catalogue previews 6 of them, while depth of range defines the number of different products within each line: in this case the standards are well defined and have always reflected the objective to faithfully reproduce the entire range of audible frequencies recognizable to the human ear.
Please note: it is important to remember that the X-Treme range (or production combination) is extremely coherent, and the correlation between the variety of product lines is well projected, both from the technological point of view and that of the final use.

Product “bundle”
The product is not recognized by its physical features or its intrinsicattributes, however, in this section, the word “product” refers to the “combination of benefits acquired by the client”.The first and most important of these benefits obtained when purchasing an X-Treme sound system is the product’s “bundle” concept: in other words, customers always enjoy a complete product, which is the product along with its additional services, for example after-sales service, long term warranty, flexible payment methods, EEC conformity certification, etc…

User-friendliness
X-Treme products have been designed to facilitate installation as much as possible for the end installer. The accessories and hanging systems represent true added value for anyone who needs to install complex sound reinforcement systems in the field, whether these are line arrays or traditional. For this purpose, the manuals produced by the technical office are able to clarify the concepts expressed.

Reputation, image, brand

The X-Treme brand was designed and created by Carlo Rossetti, Art Director of one of Italy’s best known communication and press agencies (www.soluzionidinamiche.it), and is the exclusive property of the Sound Corporationgroup. Due to its impact and its recognizability, the X-Treme division can be identified straight away and therefore it declares its standards of business quality “at first sight”. This is a question of brand equity, or the brand’s economic value, and is level one in product differentiation.
As far as X-Treme’s reputation in the professional audio market is concerned, it would be too general to think of a successful image creation as being the task of the Marketing & Sales division and its advertising campaigns: the message that their Top Management continuously tries to convey to all its direct staff is that the only ones able to make or break the company’s reputation are the customers and final users of X-Treme products (initially known as Early Adopters, and now actual Endorsers).

2. PRICE
Extremely heterogeneous from both the technical and project philosophy points of view, all X-Treme product lines (from Linear Source Array to the Monitor Line) have one single common denominator, an authentic strong point compared to rival products, an intrinsic value added to the fundamental qualities of reliability, efficiency and higher performance: a competitive price.

The three major difficulties regarding the price are:
1. its initial establishment;
2. its modifications over time (based on inflation);
3. its changes depending on the opportunities offered by the market.

The last two difficulties are about competence in the Sales department and depend on the situation of the market (or on the general economic conjuncture), the enterprise’s concentration of competition and technological-managerial know how. Referring to the item, it can be said that the establishment of the selling price of X-Treme products clearly goes against the market trend, both with its traditional approach (based on considering its own product cost calculation as the lowest limit and its competitors’ sales prices as the top limit) and the famous quality-price matrix.

Fig. 3 The traditional definition of the sales price as a value between two reference figures


Fig. 4  Price definition according to the Price-Quality Matrix of P. Kotler
             (the coherence zones between the two parameters are highlighted)