In June of 2021, Beats launched their most technically sound product in the brand’s history. The Beats Studio Buds are a portable, pocketable earbud that’s jam-packed with features but instead of touting those features, Beats wanted to celebrate what they unlock. The power of Music. “It’s The Music” is built around the tension that the premium features inside the product only exist to pull the emotion out of you. Because for us, for you, for everybody — what’s always mattered most is the music.

While the market was saturated with brands solely focused on outlining product features of their headphones, Beats chose to denounce those features and instead, highlight the audio fidelity of the buds and their ability to bring music to life. The campaign features 14 30-second spots, each focusing on a single athlete, artist, or creator discussing a specific song that hits them on a deep, emotional level. Beats paired it with bespoke B-roll footage — shot in multiple cities across the country with each individual in mind — that tells the creator’s story visually. This diverse selection of talent, passion points, and visual styles helped drive home the fact that the love of music spans borders, industries, race, and age.

With this work, Beats wanted to directly push up against the category convention of only talking about product features, which is what the entire competitive landscape is littered with. Instead, the strategy hinged on Beats by Dre's legacy of being a leader in sonic quality – born from the brand's roots in music. There is an inherently defiant nature in denouncing the very same features that everyone else praises – a subtle but important detail for every piece of communication that Beats puts out.

“It’s The Music” ran on traditional broadcast during key cultural moments like NBA Playoffs, on digital display and pre-roll, experientially through in-store activation with retail partners, and on both Beats’ and the talent’s social channels. The product was announced on 6/14, with the first campaign video kicking off on social on 6/25 — product launch day. Beats released three 15-second spots, utilizing diversified talent: a musical artist, a social media comic, and a world-renowned athlete. From there, spots were released 2–3 times a week until 7/31. While there weren't any new spots to release after July, the campaign continued into a “sustain” phase on 8/1 and beyond – keeping audiences engaged with the product and campaign through lifestyle imagery of influencers and campaign talent sporting the studio buds, and encouraging consumers to answer the question “What’s the music that does it for you?"

The campaign sparked buzz across platforms, with users organically participating in conversations on social around artists, tracks, and talent, and continued to be mentioned in culture publications. With the variety of talent and passion points, Beats hyper-targeted a larger audience than ever before, with each spot relating to a different, unique cultural group. By telling a product-led story to more audiences than ever before, the brand was able to appeal to new demographics and reach new levels of engagement, with millions of organic interactions across Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Spots featuring cultural creators were top performers on Beats’ channels. Druski, a well-known internet comedian, not only had the highest engagement across brand channels, but the track he named, “Forever After All,” saw a spike in streams on several streaming services. But people didn’t just view content – they converted into customers, resulting in one of Beats' best global product launches.