The ELAN Group
Projects
I oversaw the building of new sites & tools for the ELAN Group (Elan Home Systems, Sunfire, HomeLogic, ATON & Universal Remote Control).
Overview
Far away from Silicon Valley, in Lexington Kentucky Bob Farinelli founded ELAN Home Systems. That expanded into the ELAN Group, further completing the home control and entertainment offering. ELAN is now a part of NORTEK, the industry leader with over $1 billion in annual sales.
I went to work as chief Web developer right as the ELAN Group sought to change its image. The scope of the changes was organization wide and became the primary focus of my efforts for the next few years.
ORG: The ELAN Group
ROLE(S): Chief Web Developer
DESIGN TOOLKIT:
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Project
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Wordpress
The Problem
The ELAN Group of companies produces advanced smart home automation, entertainment and control systems for home and business.
So your DHCP antenna has the
tightest SSL array . . . who cares?!
Being an electronics company, ultimately the image it created for itself reflected an engineer's mindset. Over time, channel partners began expressing the view that this image was all wrong. Customers cared about what the products did, not the technology behind it. As the systems became more advanced, solutions often required numerous individual products. Natually, consumers weren't interested in system controllers, control extenders or transceivers. They just want things to work.
The Challenge
As the tag-line above reads, "Your world, made simple." That's a fair summary of the challenge we faced. We needed to create solutions that were simple to understand and use. And now we needed to market those solutions as simply as possible. This meant shifting focus from the technology and what was under the hood to how simple the solutions were and how they would improve a customer's lifestyle.
Identifying Users
Only a small share of products are sold direct to consumers. The bulk of products are sold through channels including security dealers, telecoms, tech integrators and service providers.
The Strategy
Each company within the group was slated for this change in focus. Each, however would require a unique solution in order to better enforce the brands and appeal to their unique customers more intuitively.
ELAN Home Systems
- Create the "g!" branded line of products designed from the ground up for the lifestyle focus.
- Add "Installations" feature to site that showcases ELAN lifestyle solutions in homes.
- Adopt the "Your world, made simple" tagline.
HomeLogic
- Adopt the "Intelligent Home Control" tagline.
- Focus on mobile app, PC & web based control UI.
- Fully enhance product line for compatibility with GreenSpace platform for energy conservation.
Universal Remote Control
- Make the shift to marketing lifestyle while allowing clear access to current dealer network tools and features they find useful.
- Continue efforts to grow existing primary sales channel, big box & retail chain stores.
- Greatly increase social media engagement, especially video productions demonstrating product use.
Sunfire
- Shift to lifestyle focus only within product lines & channels that target mid-line consumers.
- Avoid changes to legacy & other notable high end luxury products.
- Avoid cross-promotion with other companies in the ELAN group.
The Results
New web sites wasn't the ultimate goal of the multi-company initiative. But the output resulted in new public & private web sites for all companies in the group.
BEFORE
AFTER
In Conclusion
Being a part of this multi-company marketing retooling was a great pleasure. Even the mistakes and disagreements were surprisingly easy to navigate around. I think the work I did here showcases an even blend of my broader marketing skills with my various media production skills.
In this case, as in many others, the locus of greatest consideration is the user.