STORY
Amar Bose, an electrical engineer and MIT professor, founded The Bose Corporation in 1964. Due to the company’s ingenious, technical rigor, it quickly became the gold-standard in advanced audio engineering


By 2023, other big-name consumer tech brands had stormed into the market, winning significant market share with much different propositions: great UX and more stylish design.


Gigabytes of business and market analysis had plenty to say about changes to products and sales strategies. But Bose first had to pinpoint why it was different – not in degree, but in kind.


The brand’s point of differentiation goes back to 1956. Amar, a newly-minted professor, had just installed a high-end stereo speaker system at his home. He turned it on. Then off, disappointed.


Despite its impressive technical specifications, the system failed to reproduce any of the realism and strength of a live performance. Hearing music wasn’t enough. Amar wanted to feel it. Feeling sound intensifies moments. It enriches them. It makes sound an immersive experience. Amar wanted that experience. He started a company to deliver it. Bose now summarizes this ambition as “sound is power.”


Yes, Bose manufactured audio equipment. But Bose was in the business of immersive audio – sound so powerful that it grabs hold of the listener and heightens the emotions of any moment. This shift revalued Bose’s intellectual property moat: its culture of “deep tech” engineering and its vast patent library. This shift also worked to deposition other brands as delivering lower quality sound. Which, objectively, they do.


Working closely with the in-house leadership at Bose, we reimagined the global brand’s expression to better carry this story. In doing so, we narrowed the competitors' brand advantages and signaled Bose’s shift from "engineering" and “equipment” to a higher-order, more desirable value: "Immersive Audio."




IMPACT
We amplified and freed up their iconic logo to take on its most expansive form—aiming to recast Bose in people’s minds with a declarative, visual language that brings the emotive power of sound to life. This new expression has helped launch their next generation of remarkable products into the world (like QuietComfort earbuds and headphones) and foster new partnerships with artists like Donald Glover, JamieXX, PinkPantheress, Ice Spice, and more.