The Story of How Beats by Dre Completely Shocked the Audio World

Beat by Dre

If you walk around any college campus, shopping mall, city center, or really any urban area where there are people, it won’t be long until you see someone wearing a pair of Beats headphones. They are easily recognizable with their “b” logo and their red cables, and they have become one of the most popular headphone brands in the world. Actually the most popular. Many surveys and statistics show that Beats by Dre control some 70% of the total headphone market share and they were recently acquired by Apple for $3.2 billion. It’s good to be in any business that controls 70% of the market share, but what made Beats by Dre so special? How were they able to shock the audio world? Well first we have to look a bit back into history.

Ever since technology became popular, businesses always wanted to offer their products in smaller packages. TV’s keep getting thiner, our cellphones are getting smaller, and for awhile, our headphones were exceptionally small. Prior to the popularization of over-ear headphones, most people were rocking small earbuds. Sure musicians and record producers have always used large headphones, but that wasn’t the case for the general public. In the 1990’s and the early 2000’s, everyone was rocking small earbuds. Now a large majority opt to wear large, over-ear headphones and we can thank beats for that.

Beats Electronics was formally formed in 2006 and it was co-founded by prominent rapper and producer Dr. Dre and Jimmy Lovine, the chairman from Interscope Gerren A&M Records. At the time, Lovine outlined two major problems with the music industry: everyone was pirating music, and people were listening to music on low-quality earbuds. Jimmy would eventually meet up with Dre, where Dre sparked the idea for the product. Dr. Dre said “it’s one thing that people steal my music, but it’s another thing to destroy the feeling of what I’ve worked on”. So the two decided to form a headphone company that would design and produce premium headphones for the general consumer. What they did next is a great example of marketing genius.

Beats already had Dr. Dre on board and they were going to use his name on the product. Dre is, as we know, one of the most recognizable and famous rappers and producers in the music industry. He even signed Eminem. So off the bat, they attached a big name to the product that has a strong and respected recognition. If Dre has them, they must be good right? Next the two consulted with many musicians and producers in the industry to come up with the final product. In 2008 the Beats by Dre Studio headphones were introduced and produced with a partnership with Monster Cable. The headphones were designed in such a way that they were extremely stylish, good sounding, and ascetically pleasing, but how would the company get them into the market?

Beats needed to spread the word about their headphones and to do this they enlisted an army of celebrities, athletes, and other famous people. Essentially these actors and athletes would show up at various press conferences, movie debuts, and other public events wearing the headphones to generate buzz. People watching these events would see their favorite musicians or actresses wearing a pair, and then they would want a pair for themselves. As Beats became more successful, they introduced new headphone models in a variety of different colors. They were able to transform their large headphones from an audio tool into a fashion statement…and that is a big deal. That’s how you move product, you make it extremely cool and position the owners as part of the same “clique”. The use of product placement in music videos and having celebrities wear the headphones at events proved to be extremely successful as the money started rolling in. They would then partner with HTC to get their speakers (and logo) put into their cellphones and computers, propelling the brand even further. Still the headphones weren’t without criticism.

As soon as Beats came out, the audiophile world attacked them. Audiophiles are people who are high-quality sound enthusiasts that seek the best sound music possible. These are the people that have a $5,000 dollar stereo system and $1,200 dollar headphones. They felt that Beats were not proper “high-quality, studio headphones”, and they were right. Beats by Dre are expensive and there are much better sounding headphones on the market that are more affordable than Beats. Still despite the criticism audiophiles are, for the most part, a small minority of consumers. But the biggest difference between Beats by Dre and the other “better sounding” headphones is the most important one. Those other headphones aren’t cool and don’t nearly have the same amount of brand recognition. Most people don’t know what Audio-Technica ATH-M50’s are, but everyone knows what Beats by Dre are.

So even though Beats maybe aren’t the best sound headphones around, they are still better than what the vast majority of consumers were using. Beats also helped expand the market for higher-quality headphones, and that might be their biggest contribution to the audio world. Sure their headphones are extremely successful and everyone’s got a pair, but what they really did is make high-quality headphones a standard for listening. Since Beats became so big, many other headphone companies and existing brands started to offer more high-quality headphones for the general consumer. These other brands started spending more money on marketing like Beats to get their products noticed. Say what you want about Beats and how there are better headphones out there, and I would agree with that statement. But without Beats, we wouldn’t have such a strong demand for amazing sounding headphones. Competition is always great for the end consumer, and now we have many amazing headphones to choose from thanks to Beats. Still none of them are as “cool”, but without Beats by Dre most people would still be listening to music on $5 dollar earbuds, never fully hearing what the music actually sounds like.

Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Beats By Dr. Dre

Written by Sebastian Hensiek

From Philadelphia, Sebastian is a fan of music, writing, art, and entertainment.