49ers star quarterback Colin Kaepernick appeared in the above Beats by Dre commercial during a game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks.
Then all hell broke lose in Seattle. After the broadcast, Seattle media responded to fans calling for the boycott of Beats By Dre headphones.
I guess Dre didn’t realize the magnitude of the rivalry between the 49ers and Seahawks. Nor, did he realize that with this commercial he would lose an entire market in the Northwest at least only temporarily.
The problem isn’t the fact that Dr. Dre’s advertising team chose Kaepernick as the celebrity for the commercial, it is the fact that they depicted Seattle fans as angry hooligans and then had the song in the commercial sing, “I’m the man, I’m the man, I’m the man” to demonstrate the noise canceling ability of the headphones.
So, who cares? Why does it matter? Well, when taking sides in a rivalry, especially the 49ers-Seahawks rivalry which is gaining steam like a downhill train. Beats By Dre lost consumers it alienated. In this case, the Seattle fans. Furthermore, it shows that Beats By Dre hasn’t paid attention to current sporting events. Not staying up on current events is a PR no-no. The niners and hawks rivalry has made each cities fan base hate each other right down to every molecule in their body.
Both San Francisco and Seattle boast great music scenes and are nose deep in their technology.
So it doesn’t make sense that Beats By Dre would do something like this. Unfortunately, it did, and it knew it. That is why Beats By Dre came out with a new commercial just a couple days ago with Seattle star cornerback Richard Sherman to make up for its wrong doing.
Everyone knows two markets are better than one and with Sherman’s commercial Beats By Dre effectively regained its Seattle consumers.
Overcast! 