Apple begins hunt for director of Global Marketing Operations at Beats
Apple is hunting for a new director of Global Marketing Operations at its Beats division, according to a job listing posted on Thursday, a rare high-level opening at the company.
"This position holds overall responsibility for the Global Marketing Operations for Beats by Dr. Dre," the listing states. The director is expected to oversee planning, resources, and expansion, lead a team of operations managers, and ensure "good alignment and strong communication" between Beats and Apple itself.
Candidates are required to have at least 15 years of experience in managing operations for a creative agency or department, including time in an international role, and also familiarity with directly managing teams of 8 to 10 people or more.
Apple often looks toward internal candidates for such a role, and actively recruits from other companies. It's unknown if Apple has pursued those tactics for this position.
Apple bought Beats for $3 billion in 2014. Although speakers and headphones are Beats's most lucrative products, Apple is believed to be rebranding and revamping Beats Music, a so-far marginal on-demand streaming service.
Nine Inch Nails founder Trent Reznor is believed to be in charge of the project. Just recently, Apple was said to have poached four producers from BBC Radio 1 for the new service, which could be announced as soon as Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8.
"This position holds overall responsibility for the Global Marketing Operations for Beats by Dr. Dre," the listing states. The director is expected to oversee planning, resources, and expansion, lead a team of operations managers, and ensure "good alignment and strong communication" between Beats and Apple itself.
Candidates are required to have at least 15 years of experience in managing operations for a creative agency or department, including time in an international role, and also familiarity with directly managing teams of 8 to 10 people or more.
Apple often looks toward internal candidates for such a role, and actively recruits from other companies. It's unknown if Apple has pursued those tactics for this position.
Apple bought Beats for $3 billion in 2014. Although speakers and headphones are Beats's most lucrative products, Apple is believed to be rebranding and revamping Beats Music, a so-far marginal on-demand streaming service.
Nine Inch Nails founder Trent Reznor is believed to be in charge of the project. Just recently, Apple was said to have poached four producers from BBC Radio 1 for the new service, which could be announced as soon as Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8.
Comments
I regularly read headphone group tests from a number of respected audio publications. The last about a week and a half ago. And while Beats headphones have improved they are still always at the bottom of the list when it comes to sound quality.
Right. If Apple hadn't bought Beats, people around here would likely be in agreement with the reviewers. But now that Apple owns it, they're nothing less than the best money can buy at any price.
Cook foresaw the results of immature thinking with zero big picture forethought coming from the likes of Jay Z, Kanye West, etc. and pre-empted them with Dr. Dre. And Lovine already has inroads into much of that market.
Costly. But smart.
Now if they'd just get a move on with the rebrand and forget about keeping them seperate, that would be great v
Cook should be consolidating, not dividing.
But he's as smart as they come. When it becomes obvious that is a messy way to do things, he will consolidate. Just as he did with iOS/OS X teams and hardware with software teams.
The headphones make some money. It's not clear exactly how much. Last year the iPod + accessory line made $1.88b without Beats and iPod sales were falling ~50% YoY. If they did the same drop, iPods would be ~$230m lower. This year the iPod + accessory line made $1.689b so $191m lower. So the Beats addition hasn't countered that revenue drop much but the margins are likely a lot higher. From that revenue, it doesn't look like the headphone side would pay off the $3b anytime soon. It would if they made about $350m per quarter, maybe it will scale up to that. But they also got music industry contacts with Iovine and Dre, this helped promote the ?Watch. Katy Perry got over 650,000 likes on her Watch Instagram picture.
Apple makes $40b every year and their cash pile is over $200b. $3b for the most popular premium headphone manufacturer made sense to bolster their iTunes business. If they'd bought the 2nd most popular headphone manufacturer Bose, they probably wouldn't have overtaken Beats and a competitor like Samsung could have bought them, which could have pushed those buyers into buying Samsung phones instead of iPhones. It was a high price but look how much they're throwing into stock buybacks ($100b+), they get more out of investing in companies to boost their product lines and brands.
I am still bewildered over the purchase of beats.. 3 billion.....
It makes half that in revenue every year, with a reportedly healthy margin, brand equity, and a well-regarded in-road into the streaming music market.
I'm bewildered that people still think there was a downside.
I’m open for the job.
How’s this?
“Hey, you should put our fabulous headphones in your stores! Just listen and you’ll hear how they sell themselves."
"Hej, bör du sätta våra fantastiska hörlurar i din butik! Bara lyssna och du kommer att höra hur de säljer sig själva"
"??, ?? ?????? ????????? ???? ????????? ???????? ? ????? ?????????! ?????? ???????, ? ?? ????????, ??? ??? ??????? ????"
"?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????"
According to who?...Maybe you should change your reading material, because the sales of Beats headphones seems to contradict the "expert" reviews which don't seem to reflect the preferences of who is actually buying Beats. Beats delivered a hell of a marketing lesson to the industry... They thought they were in the business of selling headphones.
It's much smarter to keep Beats a separate hardware brand. Beats had built a brand that inspires those who aspire to be athletes, musicians and the like, and has a stronghold in i guess, you would say "urban" culture--not just black, not white nor Latino--but young, city dwellers. The Beats brand has tremendous brand power in that demographic.
To do away with the Beats brand would be to demolish considerable brand equity for Apple.
According to who?...Maybe you should change your reading material, because the sales of Beats headphones seems to contradict the "expert" reviews which don't seem to reflect the preferences of who is actually buying Beats. Beats delivered a hell of a marketing lesson to the industry... They thought they were in the business of selling headphones.
I stand by what I wrote. As you said, they have great marketing...
I regularly read headphone group tests from a number of respected audio publications. The last about a week and a half ago. And while Beats headphones have improved they are still always at the bottom of the list when it comes to sound quality.
"respected audio publications" sounds like you're making shit up. Why not say which publications?
Beats are mediocre headphones with a heavy bass emphasis. Many people like this, but you're hardly going to find a review that doesn't make this clear.
spheric - I concur.
"respected audio publications" sounds like you're making shit up. Why not say which publications?
What Hi-Fi and Hi-Fi Choice if you have to know. The former being the most recent that I've read - May 2015 edition to be exact...I don't make shit up! The Beats reviewed okay, but still came towards the bottom of the list in sound quality.
Then there's my own personal experience with the brand, the Solo model. They came across as plasticky and overtly bass heavy with little reproduction of subtle detail either.