Monster still dominating even after its breakup with Beats

Audio products manufacturer leverages deals with celebrities, poker tours to reach a wider audience

Press Release | Since its inception in 1979, Monster Cable Products has paved the way for the entry of high-quality audio cables into the audiophile vocabulary. Over the next three decades, the company – which started out as a one-man operation in founder Noel Lee’s garage – built a reputation as one of the best providers of high-quality audio cables in the world.

During that time, Monster was still largely a company that catered to the niche audiophile market. It wasn’t until 2007 when it entered into a manufacturing partnership with music icon Dr. Dre and his Beats Electronics brand that the company really exploded onto the mainstream consciousness. The product of that union was the massively popular Beats by Dr. Dre headphones.

By 2012, Beats had cornered a 51% share of the lucrative premium headphone market. Monster had no time to celebrate, though, as that same year Beats Electronics chose not to renew their five-year manufacturing partnership with the company. Monster quickly changed its name from Monster Cable Products to the far simpler Monster, Inc. and leveraged the client base and engineering expertise it accrued over the past few years to launch its own series of premium headphones.

In the first year post-breakup, Monster released eight new lines of headphones bolstered using marketing strategies clearly modeled after what they used in partnership with Beats. It quickly built up marketing and sponsorship deals with a number of celebrities and even released celebrity-branded headphones such as Nick Cannon’s Ncredible headphone line. Monster’s personal audio products have so far received mostly positive reviews from critics. Its DNA line, in particular, has been praised for its innovative touch screen controls by US consumer electronics website Digital Trends.

Earlier this year, Monster scored a coup when it announced a new sponsorship deal with the World Poker Tour, one of the world’s two biggest live poker tournaments. The deal will see Monster acting as the official headphone brand of the WPT, which is owned by GDcasino operator bwin’s online poker arm, until 2016. WPT winners will also stand to win exclusive limited edition Monster headphones as part of the partnership.

Even more recently, Monster also started courting the high fashion set via a partnership with French fashion house Chanel. The collaboration, which is highly reminiscent of the one between Beats and fashion designer Alexander Wang, was revealed by hip hop artist and Monster board member Swizz Beatz during the 2014 Fashion Month festivities. Additionally, Swizz Beatz has recently revealed that Adidas-branded headphones are also in the pipeline. Seems like even without the Beats brand, Monster is definitely here to stay.