Owens: What were the origins of the summit?

Witt: I’ve been working closely with Ed Sachs [president of Pioneer’s mobile entertainment division] and Larry Rougas [Pioneer’s vice president of marketing and product planning]. In the fourth quarter of last year, we uncovered some research that showed consumer awareness for everything in our segment dropping. Ed had begun to talk about this notion of bringing the industry together to talk about the fundamental issue of general consumer awareness of our industry. It was becoming evident that people just didn’t know what they could do in their cars today. That points to a fundamental awareness problem. We have research now. We have some empirical data showing that clearly this is a problem.

Owens: When was the steering committee formed?

Witt: Earlier this year at International CES, Ed asked if I would be interested, and would Alpine participate. I said yes. I will commit Alpine to come to the table to discuss this. He tried to get other folks interested. At KnowledgeFest in March, Ed asked for an audience with the [Mobile Enhancement Retailers Association] board. He and Larry came in and made a presentation to the MERA board and basically said the same thing. I’m on the MERA Board and I obviously concurred. When he got enough momentum from the folks at the MERA board meeting, he said that there seems to be enough people interested in that, and that’s when he took it to Sabatino Day. An open call was made [to let people know] that we would get together at the Sabatino Day office to kick this off. At that meeting, Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood, Directed and Clarion all came and said this was a problem and let’s see if we can put something together. That was the formation of the steering committee.

Owens: Did the manufacturers you listed help subsidize this awareness program?

Witt: Sabatino Day/Acumen Group took this information and wrote a business plan on the objective of a summit. There was no exchange of money until the actual summit was put together and the Web site was put up with the interested parties. There were no other subsidies behind it.

Owens: At least 135 industry affiliates gathered to discuss awareness for the 12-volt aftermarket. What did you take away, and what impact will this have on the industry?

Witt: We achieved a breakthrough in our industry. We were able to bring interested and caring people together for a common cause, and there was tremendous interest from manufacturers, retailers, big box and industry associations SEMA, CEA and MERA. That spoke volumes. Everybody looked at this and agreed that basic awareness for our industry is a problem. And there were enough people that actually understood that and actually cared to come together. It’s a huge step for our industry.

Owens: Does that show that we united as an industry?

Witt: We’ve taken the first step. The key will be that the follow-up actions are timely and targeted.

Owens: How will we define those actions? With all the information that was gathered, what will be done and whose responsibility will it be?

Witt: The steering committee will get together again in September. Acumen will provide a third-party, objective summary of what happened. At that point, the steering committee will review that summary and develop a detailed critical path with a milestone. We will ask for additional volunteers. We have had several high-level executives and intellectual people coming up to us immediately following the conclusion and saying they want to be on the steering committee or task force.

Owens: Many retailers indicated they were doing well with integrated solutions. Do you think the industry is shifting toward an integrated solution as a primary product category that will make audio the new accessory?

Witt: I think what we are seeing is the clear delineation between the installed kind of products and the non-installed products. The installed products are clearly moving into the integrated system direction, which really is the core of the value proposition that we’re making to the consumer. We have to stop and recognize fundamentals. With OEM systems getting better and better, the aftermarket no longer offers the simple value proposition. All the growth for the last 25 years has been based on that simple business model of being a replacement-driven industry offering something better.

Owens: How has that changed?

Witt: Today, something better is defined as a totally integrated system that delivers connectivity to different kinds of sources via satellite radio, HD radio, iPod, MP3, smartphone, navigation and audio. It improves the total user experience in the car. Integration is the key for installed systems. So we also see this other segment that’s growing rapidly of portables being brought into the car, and we see the beginnings of other categories of products that are not as heavily installed yet are being used as add-ons and upgrades to OEM systems. Both the specialty channel and big box channel have an opportunity to sell products to a customer who is basically happy with the factory system. That group is broken into a group that may want to add iPod integration. And yes, we can do that with several different solutions. We also have that part of the business now growing as well with products that allow installing dealers to upgrade the sound system. It’s a very exciting time, because we’re laying the foundation for growth opportunities.

Owens: We spent an entire day in small groups trying to define our business category, our target market and the message we want to send to potential customers. Did you have an “a-ha” moment?

Witt: For me, it was the response to Ken Schmidt’s presentation [about Harley-Davidson]. Here’s a guy who came from a company that was in big trouble. They turned around their company by looking at what was wrong. Maybe we are too focused on our products. We’re making things too difficult. It’s not about the products; it’s about telling customers about the experience. To me that was the biggest “aha” moment. Because at the conclusion of his presentation, everybody finally let down their guard, dropped the corporate egos and understood why we were there.

Owens: What areas did you feel created the most discussion?

Witt: The steering committee attempted to be very strategic in designing this summit. We wanted to build some understanding, so that we could unify everybody’s point of view and create a common understanding. The workshop on Internet social networking and community presented by the Seybold Group was pivotal for many of the attendees, because they got a fairly objective view of what’s going on and the biggest consumer behavior change around us. I had more dialogue with several management guys, as well as retailers, about that session. When they find out that Alpine has a MySpace page, half of those guys were blown away. We know that’s where a big a part of our audience is with our Rock-the-Dash Web 2.0. We knew we couldn’t just get everyone together, dump some data on them and break them into small groups immediately and hope to have any form of understanding that would lead to any meaningful output. We had to bring people along in this process because not everyone was on the same page.

Owens: There were less than a dozen retailers who attended the summit. What does this say for our industry in terms of passion and longevity for specialists?

Witt: We have to careful not to judge that. We know that for many of the specialty retailers today, running the business on a day-to-day basis is a significant challenge. We also know that there are many issues in retail, particularly in the independent channel. They don’t have enough staff, so management could not take three or four days to attend. There could be cash-flow issues. We all have to invest in our business. Let’s be careful not to judge that so harshly. I think there were other factors that played into it.

Owens: Was there anything you could do as manufacturers to boost attendance?

Witt: The steering committee was very aware of it. Alpine, Pioneer and Clarion did make attempts to reach out to retailers. We engaged MERA early on and asked MERA to communicate to their retail base of dealers. We attempted to the best of our ability to get the message out to the specialty retail channel. We didn’t have high expectations of having hundreds and hundreds of people there. In fact, the initial goal we set up as measurement criteria of success was if we got 60 people. If we got 80 people to come, we should be really happy. And if we got over 100 people, we should be really impressed. So it’s a big first step to bring the industry together like this; and we were looking for a certain balance. We wanted to ensure that every channel was represented. We also made a cognitive decision as the steering committee that inviting the MERA management would give us the collective voice of their membership of hundreds of specialty retailers.

Owens: What should participants and our industry take away from this event?

Witt: At least three things. The first thing they should take away is a newfound understanding of the problem. But that understanding should be based on having a better understanding of the consumer environment that we’re in. We should have a more knowledge now. They should also have had some inspiration of an action item that they can take and roll back into their market plan for their business, because there was just a wealth of information. Everyone should have definitely taken away something that they could put into play in their individual business. They should also see that working together to solve the problem is going to be better than trying to solve it as individuals. It’s going to be this 20,000-foot view that this has laid the foundation for a goforward position for our industry. The retailer has to make a decision. Do they want to be part of the solution or do they want to be part of the problem?