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Topic: At Dolby Labs, a dose of Apple marketing magic

Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 02-03-2014 04:28 PM

At Dolby Labs, a dose of Apple marketing magic

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, we talk with new Dolby CMO Bob Borchers, who explains the company's new video technology and how he'll stoke demand for it.

FORTUNE -- Bob Borchers recently became chief marketing officer of Dolby Laboratories (DLB), the technology company known for improving what we hear that is also working on enhancing what we see.

Before joining Dolby, Borchers had an illustrious marketing career at Nokia (NOK), Nike (NKE), and Apple (AAPL), where he was part of the core team that launched the iPhone. (He also diverted into the world of venture capital, but has decided to return to what he -- and others -- call a "real" job. In other words, helping operate a company.)

I caught up with Borchers, a 47-year-old father of three, in Las Vegas, where he was attending the Consumers Electronics Show on his third day of work at Dolby. His plans for the San Francisco-based outfit's marketing bear the distinct imprint of his experiences learning the craft at Apple under Steve Jobs. Dolby touches people's lives but can thrive only in an "ecosystem" where multiple players demand it. He favors a simplified, focused approach, a lot like Apple, and he shared part of his game plan with me.

An edited version of our chat follows.

Why leave the plush world of venture investing, where you were a partner at Opus Capital, to join Dolby?

There are benefits to coming from an operational role in venture in being able to provide advice to entrepreneurs. Still, I had an itch to scratch in terms of being inside a company with a great brand. With Dolby, when I got a chance to better understand its innovation and what they've done and to reacquaint myself with the brand after 30 years of loving it but not following it closely, I said, "Holy smokes, this is a lot better than I realized."

When I saw what they're working on and the potential of what is being delivered now, I got excited. For example, I didn't know anything about what Dolby is doing with video and movies and bringing it to life on a display. It was amazing. I just fell in love with the technology and realized there was a ton of untapped potential.

There's a lot of goodwill with the Dolby brand in the audio context. There's an opportunity to say to consumers, "Think about how it's going to transform your movie, TV, conference-calling, and other experiences too."

I share your association of the Dolby name with audio, specifically those old plastic cassettes we remember from our youth. Remind me why we have that association.

Back then you often got that nasty hiss with audio cassettes because it was built into the medium you were using. Ray Dolby figured out how to cancel or reduce that hiss without affecting the sound quality. Today that technology and its successors are in almost every DVR and TV, especially in the U.S. It all started with that little button on our tape decks. You'd press it in, and the hiss would go away.

So what is Dolby doing with video?

At CES we announced Dolby Vision, an end-to-end solution that allows filmmakers to keep their artistic expression all the way to the device. Today you make a film to a standard that is a legacy to old cathode-ray TVs on a brightness scale from 0 to 100 "nits." Today's TVs can do 700 to 800 nits. So Dolby has created a set of technologies that allow film creators and colorists to create their films on a much greater scale.

Dolby encodes that and takes it all the way through to the TV. Each pixel has more dynamic range and allows you to see details that would have been lost in the past, and the net effect is incredibly impressive. Sharp and TCL have integrated the end-piece of that technology, and they'll be shipping later this year. We've also been working with Sharp and others on a glasses-free 3-D technology that provides a depth of experience at home that so far has only been available in theaters. Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), Vudu, and Xbox (MSFT) are eager to stream movies in Dolby Vision as soon as they are available.

What's your marketing challenge?

When you get a chance to experience these kinds of things, you think, Wow, why haven't I experienced these things before? It's like a hidden gem. This is about leveraging the nearly 50 years of amazing ideas in technology that have been built by Dolby. It's important that consumers say, "We want to see this in Dolby."

Why focus on consumers when they don't buy anything from Dolby?

Whenever you deliver innovation the manufacturers are going to ask, "Are consumers going to demand this?" At Apple, when we lined up the ecosystem, we understood the need to build up this cascade of demand, all the way from manufacturing to retail, so that consumers would be very specific. It's important that the ecosystem understand the importance of consumer demand. There can't be a gap. The way you mitigate this is by showing consumers the opportunities.

So what's your marketing game plan?

This is about focusing and doing a few things extraordinarily well. New ideas require a lot of time and effort. My goal is to help bring these new things into the market in a way that will build the demand for these experiences within Dolby. Let's start with "1,000 songs in your pocket," [the slogan Apple developed] for the iPod, and then move it forward. It's about prioritizing and executing on a few things extraordinarily well.

Apple in your time and to this day markets with extremely traditional tools, including live events, television, and print advertising. What tools are you going to use?

Dolby has the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, which is where the Oscars are, a valuable experience to raise the profile of Dolby and a great place to explore and develop some relationships. It's a tool that even an Apple wouldn't have but that is perfect for Dolby. Dolby has an amazing relationship with filmmakers like Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, and many others. They have an incredibly authentic voice, and they are great storytellers. Working with them is an opportunity to partner with people to tell the Dolby story. Those are two pieces of the playbook that are going to be important to leverage.

It sounds like you're considering something similar to Apple's groundbreaking Think Different campaign that featured the images of famous iconoclasts.

It's too early to tell. I want to make sure we do things that are uniquely defined with Dolby and that aren't a rip-off of what other people have done. Too much of the consumer's electronics world is about speeds and feeds, which consumers appreciate but don't really demand. We need to get to what they appreciate and, importantly, demand.

What's your marketing budget going to be?

This is Day Three for me, so I can't get into specifics. The marketing budget has been substantial. But it's less about the size of the budget and more about how it's being executed. It's been a little more diffuse than one would ideally like. Part of my internal sense is to ask how we can do a few things extraordinarily well rather than trying to paint the world.

Good luck, Bob.

Thanks.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/01/09/at-dolby-labs-a-dose-of-apple-marketing-magic/

I have said it on this forum a few times, if Dolby wants to become relevant again, they will need to somehow marry the sound systems they have with a picture image provided by Dolby in some way. They will also need to have better brand awareness with Dolby branded theatres (I hope we see more than just the Dolby Theatre in California). Right now, the general population could care less about Dolby. Dolby Vision is step in the right direction.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 02-06-2014 01:39 PM

Rob Marshall's 'Chicago' Gets Dolby Vision Treatment; Master Used for Blu-ray

Rob Marshall’s 2002 Best Picture Oscar winner Chicago has been remastered in Dolby Vision -- and this master was used to create the Chicago Diamond Edition Blu-ray that goes on sale Feb. 11. Additionally, the Blu-ray audio has a new Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mix.

Unveiled publicly last month at the International CES, Dolby Vision is Dolby’s technical specification for an image format with higher luminance, wider color gamut and higher dynamic range than what is offered today. These characteristics could be offered with HD or 4K resolution images.

“While we’ll have to wait for Dolby Vision TVs and content to get the full Dolby Vision experience at home, we were able to use the technology to dramatically improve what Chicago looks like on today’s TVs and today’s Blu-ray Discs,” Dolby said in a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter. “It looks much better, but we do not consider it Dolby Vision content because Dolby Vision would require a Blu-ray Disc spec change and a Dolby Vision-enabled TV for playback -- so this Blu-ray does not have Dolby Vision."

STORY: Ray Dolby Tribute Planned by Motion Picture Sound Editors

"Once the rest of the ecosystem is in place, it will be possible for Lionsgate to create a true Dolby Vision release [including OTT] if they choose to do that," read the Dolby statement. One source said a theatrical re-release was also being considered.

Dolby is recommending its Dolby Vision blueprint for production through distribution. In the case of Chicago, which was shot on film, the remastering process involved color grading to the Dolby Vision spec, using a developing plug-in for existing color grading systems (and a prototype Dolby professional reference monitor that supports the format).

Dolby aims to have 20 to 25 movies -- mostly new titles -- completed in the format over the next year.

Last month at the International CES, Dolby announced that Amazon (Amazon Instant Video), Microsoft (Xbox Video), Netflix and Vudu hope to deliver movies and TV shows in this format once there are TVs in the market and content mastered and graded in Dolby Vision.

To that end, it was not ruling out the possibility that House of Cards season 2, which debuts Feb. 14 and was produced in 4K, would get Dolby Vision treatment.

Dolby's business model is to build a complete system that includes ways to create, encode and deliver Dolby Vision. It intends to license its system to set makers and other partners.

Prototype Dolby Vision televisions were unveiled by Sharp and TCL during CES. They are expected to be available for retail purchase later this year.

Technicolor is additionally developing its own high dynamic range imaging system, including a method for encoding high dynamic range (HDR) content for delivery to the home, mapping this spec to existing content, and postproducing HDR content.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is also working to develop HDR mastering techniques.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/rob-marshalls-chicago-gets-dolby-677044

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