And the deal is done... Apple acquires Beats for around $3 billion and adds Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre to their executive deck.
Here's one quote that jumps out from the NY Times recap of a chat session with Iovine and Apple's Eddy Cue:
Indeed, Mr. Iovine appears to recognize that bluster is part of his business magic. He said that Beats spent “zero dollars” on marketing during its first three years, relying solely on media attention and product placements to build its sales to $500 million.
“We knew how to harness the media,” he said. Mr. Jobs would have been proud.
Now, we all know any good promo man knows the truth should never get in the way of a great story — and Jimmy is a great promo man, in addition to being a legendary records man — so I don't think we should extrapolate that Beats got a totally free ride with video placements over those years.
But, like I said earlier about this deal: Beats is a perfect example of using music video as the primary means to define and market a product.
And, c eck this video so you know Jimmy Iovine has been cool since at least 1978...
