An article about Dr Dre’s Beats explains that the headphones cost $14 to make and sell for $450. TIME Magazine ranked Beats by Dre as the second to worst headphone brand out of 18 in terms of sound performance last month.
While Beats by Dre may be made for cheap and have questionable sound quality, the brand is a marketing juggernaut. Beats by Dre owns an 27% of a headphone industry that reported $1.8 billion in sales last year. (Allhiphop.com)
What does this tell us? That these two guys are geniuses.
In all fairness, just because it costs $14 in raw materials doesn’t mean it takes into consideration all marketing and packaging expenses. Either way, people are paying a huge premium to be recognized as “hip”. I hate the word hip but it works better than cool here because by buying these headphones you aren’t being cool; You’re being stupid paying a huge premium for an inferior product. Hip means you are trying to be a part of a crowd. A crowd that shows that product research is an after thought.
Beats were bought by Apple for $3.2 billion last summer. I always believed that higher quality products would rise to the top but this is foolish thought. People would much rather make a statement than use a quality product because it feeds the ego. Who can forget Dr Dre drinking a bit too much and almost ruining a huge deal.
Top Reddit Comment:
dr dre is a genius. he realized that since nobody is buying music, they will be spending their money on rediculously priced headphones
My Favorite Comment:
Its all about the look and the fact that you can “afford” beats by Dre. You don’t need to be rich if you can look like you are rich
Agrees. 100% agrees.