Status Check

 My area of interest today is in the Status Between 3ANC noise cancelling earbuds.  I have been aware of Status for a couple of years now, ever since I ran into one of their ads that talked about the unique design for their latest earbuds, which at the time were the Status Between Pros.  These earbuds and their successors, the Between 3ANC's, both feature 3 drivers that each take care of separate frequency ranges, allowing for more full and crisp sound reproduction.  The "Between" portion of the product line name refers to how they are between standard wireless earbuds, like air pods, and professional ear monitors for musicians, combining a high-end sound profile with user friendly features for an affordable price.  Their value statement was clear-- to make high quality audio devices at a consumer-friendly price.  I wouldn't say I'm quite an "audiophile", but I love good quality sound and don't really like excessive features on my earbuds.  As I was searching for a pair of earbuds, both the reviews and ads, all said the same thing: they had incredible sound quality, simple and effective controls, and a secure fit.  As you can imagine I was hooked and decided to buy them and have loved them ever since.  

The between 3ANC's are essentially the same, but they added noise cancelling to the mix.  For many, this is one of the most attractive features on portable audio devices because it significantly reduces the amount of background noise in loud environments.  Unfortunately, as much as I like it, it is not a perfect product.  For instance, lotus88899 mentioned that the app needs some improvements, which was a fairly common complaint among users. Another customer called koopycat on Instagram mentioned that the noise cancelling does a good job for flights, but the battery struggles to make it for 6 hours.

To market this, Status has circulated ads all over social media, especially Instagram, that explain the capabilities of the earbuds and how they are different.  They do a great job of educating you on the difference between their earbuds and the competition with video testimonials and diagrams showing the internal components of the earbuds.  They even reply quickly to customers on their sites and made sure to make right with customers who were not satisfied.  They responded to comments expressing disappointment in build quality, questions about technical specifications and even positive testimonies they liked.  Every response was warranted, helpful, and positive. The thing that stood out to me most in their advertising was they were very transparent about their target audience.  In their videos they often mentioned that they were not trying to please everybody with their product.  Instead, they made it clear that they were targeting people who care about good quality sound.  These strategies directly combat their primary marketing challenge, facing up to much larger companies like apple, Bose, and Google for similar products.  The main outcome of their adds was to create something fundamentally different than the typical feature rich and sound dark earbuds that typically circulate the market from these big companies.  

If I were in charge of the social media, I would have wanted to add more humor to the conversations in the comment section.  The one thing I noticed about their writing style was that they were all very dry and were only ever in response to other people's comments.  Even the beginning caption was pretty dry.  It would be fairly simple to draw people into the comment section and get them involved with some funny prompts or slightly less professional tone.  Especially seeing the somewhat blunt communication style they use in their videos; I think they could pull off some edgy jokes pretty well.  Instagram is also well known for having wild comment sections, so some flare would be eaten up by their audience.

In the process of researching, I learned how important it is to find a specific niche in business. Status stands out as a great example of how to carve out that niche when your competition is very large and diversified.  People love to buy in to clear visions that restore things to how they ought to be, and that is
exactly what Status did with their earbuds.