“With a lot of companies, either you have a great product and you’ve got to figure out the marketing, or you maybe don’t have the greatest product and you have to cover it up with great marketing,” says Chris Thorne, chief marketing officer and head of product at Beats. “But I’ve got a great product and a brand with an unbelievable marketing and creative history.”

Founded by rapper and producer Dr Dre and Interscope Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine in 2006, Beats has emerged as one of the leading brands in what is an increasingly competitive and rapidly developing audio market. So much so that it was bought by Apple for $3 billion in 2014, making it the largest acquisition in the tech giant’s history. Thorne subsequently joined the business in 2019, having previously worked in marketing roles at brands such as Electronic Arts.

As a brand that sits at the intersection of music, sport and culture, marketing and creativity has always been a big part of Beats’ DNA. The main changes that the team behind it have had to navigate over the company’s almost two-decade history is what audiences now expect from the brands they choose to spend their money with.