Originally known for its innovative optical technology for sport professionals, Oakley, Inc. has grown into a world renowned sport and lifestyle brand featuring high performance sunglasses, prescription lenses and frames, goggles, apparel, footwear and accessories. It has a chain of retail platforms across the world, including six Oakley Stores in the UK.
Oakley chose Bose as its sound system and PEL for the installation work for its second UK Oakley Store - in Bluewater in 2007. John Pollard, Oakley (UK) director and general manager, took a hands on role in specifying the sound system.
"I took a far more proactive role in the sourcing of additional services and it was fitting that a technology driven company like Oakley should chose to install a system from Bose. When I was looking for a company to install at Bluewater, I telephoned a few companies and it was the quality of the information provided and their customer service that set PEL ahead of the others." Impressed, Pollard decided to use the Bose / PEL combination in the next four store openings.
A Bose pro-partner, PEL Music & Media has installed a Bose FreeSpace 3 system in to each of the Oakley stores, the latest one being Liverpool. The FreeSpace 3 system combines flush-mount, surface-mount and pendant-mount speakers to work with different store décors and layouts. This aspect was also of importance to Oakley as Pollard states: "A key benefit for us is the excellent sound quality from minimalistic components."
(Jim Evans)
