“At the time, most headphones on sale were dull and grey with everything in silver or black and rather boring. Urbanears changed everything by creating a range of well-designed, high quality yet affordable headphones in a rainbow of colors. These days, colorful and fashionable headphones are a given, but back then it was revolutionary. We added a microphone to the audio cable of the headphones so our customers could make phone calls.
“Let me give you an interesting nugget about Zound,” enthused de Maillard. “When the company started, the founders were one of the first to experiment with crowd investing. They reached out to their network of friends of contacts in the industry and beyond. I was one of their first investors when the company began back in 2009 when it was no more than a PowerPoint presentation.Zound Industries
De Maillard immediately assured me that the Marshall agreement is in place until 2033 and that the partnership with adidas is in a very good place. I asked if he thought there was something about the culture in Sweden that made it a centre of headphone design excellence. There are now other big names in the industry based in Sweden, like Urbanista and Happy Plugs, plus quite a few smaller companies designing and selling earbuds.
I wondered whether the average Marshall fan was all that worried about sustainability as much as, say, an Urbanears fan might be. Marshall fans are rooted in rock’n’roll and I reminded de Maillard that the Marshall rock lifestyle might not be quite so focused on progressive values or sustainability. “Apple, Bose, Sony JBL all make good products, great products. However, those products don’t say much about you as an individual. If someone has AirPods it’s kind of: ‘Okay, so you’ve got some headphones, but everybody else has got the same ones too’. But if you see someone wearing Marshall headphones, you’re more likely to think ‘Oh! That’s cool and interesting’.
Despite being a Swedish company, I wondered if the inclusivity and diversity values so close to de Maillard’s heart were reflected in his team. How multinational are his workers? Do they come from all over the world or is it a heavily Swedish workforce?
Australia Australia Latest News, Australia Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: Utoday_en - 🏆 295. / 63 Read more »