Influencers trump consumer research for Beats by Dre
Stephen WhitesideWarc
Beats by Dre effectively created the premium headphone category when launching its first products in 2008, then cemented its status as a marketing heavyweight after being purchased by Apple for $3 billion in 2014.
And according to Omar Johnson – who joined Beats as vp/marketing in 2010 when its headcount was in the single digits, and now serves as the enterprise's CMO – this meteoric rise owes less to minutely scrutinising the wants and needs of its 16-24-year-old target audience, and more to the influencers who help the organisation...