beats by dre: show your color

How do you make a campaign for a brand that doesn’t exist yet?

R/GA London Beats wanted the 2012 launch of their new coloured headphones to make a big impact and bring people together. We identified that the target audience had one thing in common: their cherished individuality. That’s why we set out to create a campaign driven by the self-expression of the fans. Starting with an inspired launch in the midst of the London Games in 2012, we kickstarted a culture around sound and self-expression that took the world by storm. The result was an additional 1.7 million fans joining the Beats Army, including a 76% growth in Instagram followers and a 57% increase in YouTube subscribers. Overall, as a result of the campaign, Beats by Dre accounted for 80% of all premium headphone sales in the US during the holiday season in 2012, plus 50% of all headphone sales during the same period. Reaching 180 countries, the #showyourcolor campaign was an astronomical success — making Beats by Dr. Dre the #1 audio brand.

HOW IT WORKED

When this ad was made, Beats were a 12 person start-up in the back of Interscope’s offices. No one knew they existed. A fact they wanted to change very, very quickly.

They had an unusual problem, however, They had all the talent in the world — but no money to make anything.

So the idea we came up with was to create an ad that could be shot literally anywhere, in the back of any available or remote studio, featuring any athlete or celebrity, and captured by any photographer or director available in the moment.

As a creative, this is quite a scary way to make something. But the rubric was simple, and I think catchy enough, to just about pull it off.

We launched this campaign at the 2012 London Olympics. That, along with a clever gifting strategy, made Beats by far the most visible brand at the Olympics. And by the end of 2012, it seemed like everyone had a pair of big red headphones around their neck.