Beats purchase would tap subculture
Beats purchase would tap subculture
It’s got a
hold on the graphic design crowd, the hipster generation and Phil Dunphy
from “Modern Family.” But Apple hasn’t had much sway with the
big-spending demographic of hip-hop fans. That will certainly change if
the company’s reported
$3.2 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics is
approved.
The brainchild of legendary rapper Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, Beats Electronics is a study in the power of branding. Sure, its headphones and speakers aren’t half bad, but Apple isn’t buying Beats for the technology. Any of their engineering teams could whip up a superior audio product without breaking a sweat.
What they’re buying is a subculture, and a group of customers that comes along with that. It’s a hip-hop-loving subculture that is prominent among teens — nearly half of whom are fans of the Beats brand, according to a recent survey by Piper Jaffray.
That particular demographic could help Apple penetrate the latest emerging trend in technology: wearables.
Apple’s recent patent on fitness tracking headphones gives us a giant hint about where the company is headed. The patent, granted earlier this year, is for Apple to produce headphones that can detect head gestures and monitor the heart rate and other vitals of the user.
For all the talk about Tim Cook not measuring up to the Steve Jobs legacy, it seems like a pretty savvy move to focus on headphones rather than smartwatches.
Nearly nobody under 40 wears watches, but nearly everyone under 40 has a pair of headphones. It’s brilliant, really: Forget about the DOA industry that is smart watches and do what Apple does best — reinvent a whole new product category.
The smart-headphone is something I could buy into, and I’m not even a Beats fangirl (though I have flirted with the idea). A recent video that surfaced of Dr. Dre seems to confirm the rumor of Apple’s purchase.
“The first billionaire in hip-hop right here from the (expletive) West Coast,” Dre declares, seemingly intoxicated. And who could blame him?
The brainchild of legendary rapper Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, Beats Electronics is a study in the power of branding. Sure, its headphones and speakers aren’t half bad, but Apple isn’t buying Beats for the technology. Any of their engineering teams could whip up a superior audio product without breaking a sweat.
What they’re buying is a subculture, and a group of customers that comes along with that. It’s a hip-hop-loving subculture that is prominent among teens — nearly half of whom are fans of the Beats brand, according to a recent survey by Piper Jaffray.
That particular demographic could help Apple penetrate the latest emerging trend in technology: wearables.
Apple’s recent patent on fitness tracking headphones gives us a giant hint about where the company is headed. The patent, granted earlier this year, is for Apple to produce headphones that can detect head gestures and monitor the heart rate and other vitals of the user.
For all the talk about Tim Cook not measuring up to the Steve Jobs legacy, it seems like a pretty savvy move to focus on headphones rather than smartwatches.
Nearly nobody under 40 wears watches, but nearly everyone under 40 has a pair of headphones. It’s brilliant, really: Forget about the DOA industry that is smart watches and do what Apple does best — reinvent a whole new product category.
The smart-headphone is something I could buy into, and I’m not even a Beats fangirl (though I have flirted with the idea). A recent video that surfaced of Dr. Dre seems to confirm the rumor of Apple’s purchase.
“The first billionaire in hip-hop right here from the (expletive) West Coast,” Dre declares, seemingly intoxicated. And who could blame him?
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