Beats Electronics, LLC is the umbrella body of beats by Dre which is a manufacture of Audio products and equipment, with its headquarters in Santa Monica, with Dr. Dre and Interscope records chairman, Jimmy Lovine as its original founders.
The company was formed in 2006, launched its first product Beats by Dre student headphones in 2008. In 2010, HTC a leading mobile phone manufacture acquired 50.1% equity in the company with a majority share of $309 million. It later sold 25% equity to the founders while still retaining the largest shareholder with 25.1% stake. This was in an effort to offer flexibility for global expansion while maintaining HTC’s majority stake. In addition, the purchase granted HTC exclusive rights to manufacture smart phones, accessorized with Beats audio systems. Despite being a majority shareholder, HTC allowed Beats to continue operations as an independent entity.
Monster cable is a brand of Monster Inc that is responsible for producing consumer electronics accessories including audio and video cables, speakers, and remotes. In 2008, it formed a partnership with Dr. Dre, a celebrity rapper, in the creation of a newline of headphones called Beats by Dre. However, in 2012, Monster cable and Beats electronics dissolved their partnership with Monster starting its own line of Monster-branded headphones. Beats has a wide range of products from Beats by Dre headphones which is their most popular product, to beats earphones, laptops and speakers.
Dr. Dre’s career as a producer has played a significant role in influencing the entertainment industry and in particular the use of headphones since he has credible experience on sound quality. This displays the brand as a luxurious and fashionable item that gives credibility to the product (Appelhans, 2011). This is a perfect system of creating and fostering desire defining marketing in our consumer society. This is a true definition of what a consumer society is, where the creation of need and desire to consume more and more is encouraged. This translates to increased consumption of goods, in this case, beats by Dre headphones with the assistance of aggressive marketing.
Beats Electronics has fashioned its own target which is the young teens and adults of ages 14-30 who are ardent music enthusiasts. Music lovers often idolize and copy their favorite artists and are likely to take advantage of the gadgets they represent and Beats electronics has taken advantage of this phenomena. Many artists include singers, actors and even models have appeared in the mass media through TV, magazines and the internet while wearing Beats by Dre headphones and thus appearing as fashionable and flashy. Marketing through the mass media has been able to create a ‘celebrity like’ image that consumers want to identify themselves with.
Beats by Dre has therefore, influenced our culture in that, we now identify the headphones and earphones into fashion statements. It is now popular to see people in the streets, mostly the youth parading the trademark earphones in all shapes and sizes .Perhaps, it has revolutionized the music world and more people are now able to listen to music, up-close and personal. In other ways, it is influencing also the choice of music listeners. For example, many musicians today are endorsing the product massively and therefore it is only normal that, the fans would follow suit in an effort to appear as their favorite idols. I t could be the reason why music such as trance and house music is quite popular among the youth currently. In the past, only a handful of musicians and producers could pay as much as $300 for a set of headphones. The introduction beats by Dre has revolutionized and changed this with headsets costing hundreds of dollars being the fastest growing categories in the electronics. This means that, individuals are willing to spend money to acquire Beats by Dre with the notion and belief they are of outstanding quality, given its endorsement by celebrities. In fact, U.S. sales of headphones that cost $100 or more increased 70% in 2012; far outpacing sales in headphone market overall. The biggest player in this market is Beats by Dre, earning about $110million, translating to 64% of the $100 headphone market.
The mass media technology has played a crucial role in propelling the image of beats by Dre through the endless advertisements on Television. The media around us is constantly filled with new images of beat. For Example, in the movie Book of Eli, it features the in-ear beads which have a symbolic role as far as Beats by Dre is concerned. All this is product placement where consumers are exposed to a product subliminally. This influence consumer’s choice on Beats by Dre as they associate them with images and lifestyles, as portrayed on the mass media, in this case television.
The use of smart phones and tablets has increased the demand for headphones and driven its market to another level. Smart phones and tablets represent part of the mass media technology, besides the internet and television. They are used to share information on a global level in a swift and cost effective way and address the needs of consumer, particularly of the younger demography. Part of the need is to share and listen music on mobile devises, and therefore most have mobile hi-fi speaker systems, and a necessity to its users. Beats by Dre has been able to penetrate the headphone market on the context of providing high sound quality than what was in the market (Sunburn, 2011). In essence, Beats founders discovered that low-fi MP3s usually played through the laptop speakers or normal earphones present in the market. They thought the resulting sound quality was sub-standard and was not the way producers, music enthusiasts and musicians alike, wanted music to be heard.
The beats by Dre therefore addressed this need with the beats by Dre headsets which are their most popular to date. They have generally been praised for their audio quality compared to their competitors. A reflection of this can be seen in their huge number of sales and number of celebrities endorsing their products, regardless of their high prices. It would seem that Beats by Dre is worth the hype since it continue to post increased sales since 2008, and other Headsets such as Skullcandy by 50cent have not actually met their threshold in terms of sales. In addition, the company is diversifying by creating earphones for laptops and other electronic products meaning there is demand from their loyal consumers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Beats by Dre has revolutionized the music and sound industry and in particular in production of music accessories. Its strategy to take advantage of the mass media technology in form of Smart phones, tablets and also Television has worked favorably on their favor. It has able to reach a wide audience and in particular the young demography making it a product to reckon with.
References
Biagi, S. (2010). Media/impact: An introduction to mass media. Boston, MA: Cengage Wadsworth.
The Impact of Mass Media Consumers (2011). Socyberty. Retrieved from http://socyberty.com/issues/the-impact-of-mass-media-and-advertising-on-consumers-2/
Appelhans, A (2011). Beats by Dre in Consumer Society. Brands and Films. Retrieved from http://brandsandfilms.com/2011/03/beats-by-dre-in-consumer-society/
