If you were to ask me what is my most-wanted item, I would say that I really want the Monster Beats by Dr. Dre headphones! The Beats by Dr. Dre line of high-performance headphones has started a craze in the U.S. market in recent years, where customers – students like myself, the target market – are willing to save money to buy these overpriced headphones. Why? This is because you can see them on celebrities, in music videos, and everywhere in the social media, network…where more celebrities talk about them! Basically, star power is the key.
Celebrity branding has helped Beats to establish its competitive advantage over their competitors such as Skullcandy, which also offers high-end and fashionable lines of headphones. What makes Beats headphones more appealing is when Beats partnered with celebrities like Lady Gaga, Diddy and Justin Bieber, who are well-known for their mix of style in music and fashion, to create themed headphones. It is a smart strategy of differentiating their headphones as the ones that allow users to “hear what the artists hear and listen to the music the way they should”. Therefore, the headphones are appeal to not only music fans, but also to people that want the same experience as the celebrities.
Beats’ marketing is also facilitated by the growing demand for high quality music in the younger generation and the popular trend of people producing their own songs with the convenience of music-mixing softwares available online. With the help of famous music producers like Will.I.Am promoting Beats headphones in their music videos, customers are curious and eager to experience using the same headphones that the professional music producers are using.
Therefore, despite that the Beats headphones are quite overpriced, I really want to try on the headphones!!!!!