Lifestyle Hearing Protection: Inception to Category Leader

SITUATION

Despite an innovative, high-performance product and an otherwise unexplored new market segment, the company struggled with reinvigorating an old school product category by introducing a new, preventative brand of hearing protection and educating consumers attending concerts and loud venues to protect their hearing or lose it over time.

OPPORTUNITY

After launching in 2010, the company’s mission was to meaningfully change the way people consider their hearing health and the options to protect it.  In order to achieve this mission they would have to convince consumers that using high quality hearing protection at concerts and loud venues was as important as wearing sunscreen. 

RESULTS

Growth Avenue was recruited to the company’s advisory board and helped them launch an entirely new product category at SXSW in 2010. Hi-Fi hearing protection was a completely new experience for most people. Since then, the company has grown to become the leading brand of hearing protection for live entertainment, motorsports, and safety. They are exclusive hearing protection providers to bands and brands like Metallica and Red Bull. They are steadily making this type of solution a standard accessory for loud adventures.

Growth Avenue implemented wide ranging sales, marketing and development strategies which took the company from a presentation pitch to becoming a global pioneer of lifestyle hearing protection.

Marketing

• Built a brand positioning and messaging framework to differentiate the company’s new product in the marketplace, in the process developing an entirely new vocabulary and reducing the marketing budget necessary to explain the company’s value proposition.

Business Development

• Implemented an angel fundraising pitch deck which resulted in an oversubscribed fundraising round. 

• Developed partnerships with global consumer brands and media/lifestyle companies, resulting in six-figure revenue for the business and key endorsements from leading industry organizations. 

Sales

• Assisted in the development of a global sales team, including training and mentoring key regional leaders, which resulted in double-digit revenue growth for five consecutive years.

Finance

• Served the CEO through quarterly board meetings and offsites to help ensure growth projections and financial forecasting were in line with company growth expectations and measured annual results for 10 years running, through 2022.  

• Currently helping the company position themselves for accelerated growth and acquisition.