Thursday, November 11th – #StyledbyHarman was a true mix of taste, touch, and sound.
Located one avenue east of the current political protests taking place in New York City, the Harman Store was transformed into a canvas for exploring personal taste and connecting with the various Harman brands at the deepest levels. The evening began with the guests, myself included, perusing the store and exploring the products on display. I was approached by a guy wearing his best hipster chic outfit; he turned out to be the Head of Customer Experience for the Harman store. He told me the fascinating story of the 3 main brands JBL, Harman/Kardon, and AKG. JBL he described is not simply a cost-efficient audio manufacturer, in fact their speakers are in 70% of movie theatres, half of the NBA’s arenas, and many concert halls around the country. As Russ described it, Harman serves every part of the continuum of audio. AKG is used by studio professionals for creation, Harman/Kardon reaches a sophisticated customer in their home or vehicle, and JBL provides the live audio experiences that we’ve all come to love and splurge on.
After mingling a bit more and hearing a quick run down of the evening, we jumped right in with a wine tasting led by Gramercy Tavern’s new Sommelier, Justin Timsit. Having visiting Napa Valley in the past and having participated in plenty of wine tastings, I thought I knew my wines. Justin took the wine experience to the next level by showing us how wine has a frequency and that certain wines pair with personal style. We were treated to 4 best in class wines and through this process discovered that Sancerre has a very “high pitch” with tons of acidity that will make your mouth water. Try it and you’ll know what I mean. I also have a new affinity for Chardonnay. Maybe it was the brand, Lioco, or maybe it was the way it was described, but I tasted the oak notes and smooth, milk-like texture and came away impressed. My favorite wine of the evening was the Caparzo Brunello Di Montalcino, which a fellow guest pointed out smelled like toasted marshmallows. After tasting it for myself, that’s all I could smell and taste and was hooked. Harman did a great job having the guests focus on their individual palettes and connecting that with their brands.
Moving along from the wine tasting, we went into creating our own personal “style boards”. Real-life Pinterest boards, if you will. I’ll have to admit that arts and crafts aren’t quite my strong suit, but I played along. We were led in this exercise by a style blogger who had a wide range of materials laid out for us to use including flowers, rocks, gold paper, and branches. The object was to find items that matched your style and glue them together on a style board. As would be expected, the head of automotive stereo design was asked to share his board and also discuss the design process at Harman. He let us in on a secret, the backslash (/) in Haman/Kardon is at a perfect 60 degree angle and all of their products share the same 60 degree design elements. Harman is fixated with design and is deliberate in their choices, resulting in beautiful products.
Speaking of products, it was now time to get to the audio experiences. First up was the Mark Levinson experience. Mark Levinson is likely Harman’s most prestigious brand and you could definitely tell as soon as the music started. We were treated to a few styles of music from folk to jazz and the sound quality was mesmerizing, so much so that when we were asked to switch rooms, all of the guests were in the zone. Simply stated, it’s music as it’s supposed to be heard. If you want that same experience in your home, you’ll have to part with a mere $100,000.
Next up was the competitor evaluation. We were taken to the Sound Cube, a soundproof room, where we were played the same songs on 3 different products in 3 different categories from brands like Bose, Beats by Dre, Yamaha, Klipsch, and of course Harman. The main takeaways were that Bose products have a bit too much base, Beats by Dre have a bit too much treble, and Harman products strike a great balance. As a current owner of Bose audio products, I admit, it may be time to re-evaluate my preferences.
For the main event, we were swept into the screening room and shown clips from Jurassic World, and other movies meant to give us the full power of the Harman audio experience by combining all of their brands, design, and technology. I was literally blown away (we were played an audio clip of a 747 taking off) and left with the impression that while it doesn’t get the marketing hype that other audio companies receive, Harman is a force to be reckoned with.
I came away with a whole new respect for the JBL brand and Harman as a whole. The Harman Experience by Design event nailed it by exposing all of their brands personalities in an immersive and fun way that connected all of their guests to their story.
[slideshow]Photo Credit: Jonathan Etheart
Follow Jonathan on twitter here @Ethsworld.