It's an arrangement that offers customer minimal risk and the potential for maximum profits. "The Cobra is absolutely ideal for the bread-and-butter business," says Haug: "A village fair, a speech by the Mayor, a rock band in the town hall... the system is simply so versatile, so compact and so easy to work with." With the initiative well underway, it appears Electric Sound Benelux has really struck a chord with the pro audio scene in the Low Countries.
"People are having positive experiences with this and word soon spreads. The demand is great across the board. Not least because fairness looms large in the equation. The terms are attractive, and anyone who does get into difficulties with the leasing charges - which happens rarely, meets with an understanding partner. "To a bank, a one-year old Cobra may not seem to be worth all that much, but we, naturally, take a different view of the matter - to the relief and delight of our customers."
Another initiative of the marketing philosophy of the Dutch Dynacord distributor is the rental business: C-4 For Hire is the name of a network of around seven Cobra users in the Low Countries. Haug brought the participants together around five years ago but stresses that theirs is a completely independent venture and that it operates as a separate business from Electric Sound. A successful one, though.
"It's a case there of companies helping one another out," Haug explains, "because there will always be spikes in demand. On the 30 April, for example, the date of Queen Beatrix's coronation, there are festivals and parties everywhere in The Netherlands, and the supply of sound reinforcement systems begins to run short. Fortunately, friendly companies in Belgium are ready to lend a hand." Originally limited to Cobra-4 systems, the pool has now expanded to include Cobra-2 systems as well.
Electric Sound also offers a part-exchange system that is proving popular. Rounding off the Cobra support package, a wide variety of training courses are offered by the Pro Sound Academy at Electric Sound's headquarters in The Netherlands as well as the European headquarters at Straubing.
(Jim Evans)
