Omar Johnson

When Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine created Beats in 2006, their goal was to create a great sounding headphone. However, it wasn't until Omar Johnson came along that Beats became the most popular headphone for athletes and musicians. Johnson was able to turn a 180 million dollar company into a billion dollar enterprise through unconventional marketing tactics and his brand of insight, idea, execution and result. In his highly engaging talk, Johnson shows how he used curiosity and creativity to turn Beats headphones from a commodity product into an experience and an international brand.

Marketing is about ideas and authenticity. When Omar Johnson took over the marketing for Beats by Dre, he created a flat organization style where the best idea could win. He encouraged everyone to contribute ideas from the newest member of the team to the oldest. Instead of heavy data analysis, his team would talk to actual users of Beats in the streets in order to find why and how people were using their headphones. The result was a billion dollar company and category leader. In this talk, Omar shares techniques from his experience on how to develop the best ideas.