This morning Monster welcomed us with a list of speakers and special guests that ran the gamut of popular sports stars to other easily recognizable names. I heard a guy joke behind me, in the line as we waited to enter, that it seemed more like an awards show than a press conference. Perhaps…
Noel Lee, the Head Monster, came out on a tricked out Segway (gold rims and a flame-job!), saying this was going to be the most exciting press conference we’d attend all day. With much enthusiasm, he said they’d be introducing a new line of mobility products, including rechargeable extended batteries and a new line of headphones just for mobile devices.
Noel went on to say that CES has become “Headphones ‘R Us”, but Monster was going to continue to bring quality items to the marketplace, and that includes a next generation of wireless devices.
The marketing message is that in 2013, you need to have a combination of elements that they call “mènage á trois”. Those elements include fashion, entertainments and sports, and technology, which sounds more like four items to me, but whatevs.
Noel mentioned Monster’s partnership with Nokia, and briefly flashed the Purity Pro headphones that matched the colors of all of the Lumia 820 and 920 Windows Phones.
Tyson Beckford came on stage to introduce the new Diesel Vektr headphones.
Andrea Giacomelli from Diesel came on stage to say how excited Diesel was to be collaborating with Monster.
Performer Shiela E. [Absolutely gorgeous! Still!] came on stage to thank everyone for supporting the Diamond Tears headphones, and thanked Monster for bringing fashion to technology.
There was more to come. Monster’s Inspiration headphones have a new line of fashion headbands that are being introduced at CES. And for the ladies (or men who prefer a smaller headset), there is a new $249.99 Inspiration Light headphone. This new line does not offer the noise cancellation of the pair I reviewed, but they are significantly smaller. No doubt that will appeal to many.
Next up was a new collaboration between Tumi and Monster. Soon after, Nick Cannon came on stage to talk about his NCredible collaboration with Monster that lets them offer the “best of the best, but at an affordable price point.” Clearly Monster is looking to cover as much of the headphone market as possible.
Monster wasn’t done. Noel said they waited to get into gaming headphones until they could produce the best. Now they were ready. To announce their new gaming headphones he brought EA Sports VP Marketing, Chris Erb, to the stage. He, in turn, brought out Sugar Ray Leonard.
Then Xibit came on stage, it seemed mainly to show his support for the brand.
Next was iSports brand advocate, Drew Brees, which got quite a few if the sports fans sitting near me very energized. [Hes's smaller in real life than I expected.]
And a new partnership with UFC was announced.
They then announced MusicShare with DNA’s dual ports, a new Viacom collaboration. (What you can’t see in this picture is that all of the models wearing headphones are connected and presumably listening to the same music.)
Lee Coleman, VP of Business Development from Viacom (MTV, VH1, etc — huge! for those of you scratching your heads), came out to talk about the importance of their collaboration with Monster, global give back, and how they would be integrating Monster products into all of their programming.
Lee Colman said that Best Buy is excited about their camo DNA collaboration which gives back to the troups.
The press conference ended with the Monster kids breakdancing on stage … And me missing photo ops with the stars because I was off and running to the next event! Yikes!
