Canadian speaker company Totem Acoustic has announced the launch of a redesigned website for its flagship brand. The launch completes a company-wide digital overhaul that also included a new website for Totem sister brand KIN, which was revealed earlier in the year.
The new Totem Acoustic site aligns with the same aesthetic principles that have become familiar from Totem. These have been witnessed through the company’s clean trade show booth design, store-in-store experience, and with print and digital ads. All emphasize beautiful modern interiors and high-end lifestyle photography, and feature sleek home listening environments.
The site’s home page puts emphasis on the latest Totem Acoustic release, currently the Bison Series. Scrolling down the page, the site is indexed by category of speaker such as floorstanding, bookshelf, subwoofers, and so on. Within each category is a sub-index showing all models within the Totem line. Clicking on Floor Standing, for example, provides images for all floorstanding offerings such as the Totem Tribe, Forest, Wind, Bison, and Arro. A third click on each model then brings the site browser to a page providing pertinent information. This includes specs, design features, a gallery of images, and a newsletter subscription feature for requesting additional information.
Totem Acoustic also places a strong focus on Totem’s Architectural speakers, highlighting Totem’s continued growth in this important product category. The new site shows many of the architectural products at creative angles using 3D and AI tools. This helps realistically showcase how the products can be incorporated in a home environment.
Absent from the page is the buy now e-commerce button that is becoming a common inclusion for many consumer electronics companies. Lucy Lentini, Vice President for Totem Acoustic explains: “For over 35 years, Totem has established strong relationships with our global dealer community, to a point where we view many as part of our family. In 1987 when we started, many dealers took a chance on an unknown Canadian speaker brand and to this day, they are still representing Totem Acoustic. Our philosophy,” adds Lentini, “is to support the dealer community. This is why we opted to include a dealer locator and customer support options to the new site, rather than to buy directly from us.”
That said, Lentini recognizes that buying patterns and customer expectations do change based on cultural norms in the 35+ countries where Totem Acoustic sells. Thus, the online experience can be customized by country, based on IP address protocol to meet those expectations.
A meaningful change from the old Totem site, is that the new site no longer promotes the company’s second brand KIN within the Totem Acoustic website. “We see the customer for KIN and Totem to be completely different and they demand a separation,” says Lentini. “KIN is a young, digitally savvy consumer that spends time on social media, relies on peer reviews, and while looking for a high-performance product, they also want something simple to use and the immediacy of buying right away. That’s why we created a standalone KIN website earlier in the year and do most of our branding for KIN through social media channels.
:The Totem Acoustic buyer on the other hand,” she continues, “has usually spent a life as an audiophile or audio enthusiast, is sophisticated with a component audio setup, and expects a higher level of one-on-one demonstration experience that comes from the relationship with the dealer. If all goes well, our 20-something KIN listener will become a 30-something Totem Acoustic listener as they expand their audio portfolio!”
In addition to including all the information a consumer could need to make an informed buying decision, the new Totem Acoustic website also includes a colourful history of the company and how it all began in 1987. There is a separate section that provides a bio and the engineering philosophy from company founder Vince Bruzzese in addition to a section on understanding Totem’s Torrent Driver Technology. The new website is accessible in both French and English.