If you’ve been to any concerts this summer, you may have noticed more young people are wearing earplugs than ever. A lot of that is down to serious improvements in the design and hearing protection technologies of in-ear gadgets. And if you own an Instagram account and are between the ages 25 and 35, there’s one brand whose ads you’ve likely been targeted with: Loop, a Belgium-HQ’d startup whose jewellery-like earplugs retail for $25 to $60.
It turns out that’s a price that Gen Zs and young millennials are willing to pay to protect their ears — as long as they look cool while doing so. “Young consumers are more aware of hearing damage and want to protect themselves with design-led earplugs. Sleek designs now make earplugs feel like a second earring, which removes stigma and boosts appeal,” says Carol Aquino, head of consumer tech at trend forecaster WGSN. “They’re signifiers of belonging — you’re part of the crowd of regulars that spent money on something relatively ‘expensive’, because you’re constantly at festivals and clubs.”
Loop just hit $206 million in annual revenue, a 50 per cent year-on-year increase in sales, and has sold 15 million sets of earplugs to date. Founded in 2016 by childhood friends and engineers Maarten Bodewes and Dimitri O, the company has been profitable since 2019, and unlike most startups and brands of its size, it’s grown with barely any venture capital — just €800,000 in total, according to Bodewes. A lot of this is down to the fact the company almost instantly reached product-market fit, says Bodewes.
“Back when we were at university, there were just ugly foamies or transparent earplugs that looked like Christmas trees, and both muffled sound and weren’t too comfortable to wear. At the same time, there was a real stigma around hearing protection,” Bodewes says. He and his co-founder noticed that companies like Beats were designing noise-cancelling headphones that people were wearing as accessories around their necks, and more people were starting to wear ski helmets on the slopes.
“Protection was becoming cool. Sunglasses have always been a fashion statement, so we thought how can we redefine what earplugs can do so you can enjoy the music, while also taking inspiration from the jewellery segment and make them a fashion statement themselves,” Bodewes says.
The Loop founders started out 3D printing earplug prototypes that they tested on dummy heads in sound booths and among friends and family. By 2019, they’d sold one million pairs of earplugs — 50 per cent direct-to-consumer (DTC) through their own website, called Nightlife.com at the time, and 50 per cent through Amazon and Shopify. Since then, Loop has expanded its product range to include earplugs designed for sleep and also noise sensitivity for motorsports — uses that Bodewes says are more popular in the Asia-Pacific region, where ear protection at parties is less of a priority. But in Loop’s biggest markets — the UK and the US — it’s a marketing focus on looking cool at social events that’s driven the brand’s exponential growth.
Festival collaborations and functionality
Loop was the official hearing protection partner for Glastonbury, Tomorrowland and Coachella this year, as well as the first hearing protection partner of McLaren Racing at Formula One. Having a monopoly on these events is no mean feat — there were around 250,000 people at Glastonbury festival this year, and 125,000 at each day of Coachella. Bodewes says that while at Tomorrowland, the amount of Loops you see festival-goers wearing is “insane”, at Glastonbury, only a small proportion of attendees opt for earplugs. At the same time, more health-conscious Gen Zs are prioritising protecting their ears than previous generations, as music gets louder and awareness improves. In July, research from the UK’s Royal National Institute for Deaf People found that 58 per cent of Gen Z have experienced hearing loss, tinnitus or both after listening to music.
“The awareness is there, but the market penetration is overall still quite small, which is what’s so interesting for us,” Bodewes says. “So partnering with these festivals is less a sales channel and more of a brand-building exercise — it gives us credibility in the market. We’re able to create cool content from being there and that gives us a platform to expand into more verticals.”
Bodewes says that most of Loop’s customers are between the ages of 25 and 35, and customer surveys show that they’re choosing the brand’s earplugs first for function and second for form. These young consumers are also willing to spend more on better design — Loop’s bestselling product is its most expensive, Switch, which enables users to swap the filters in their earplugs for varied decibel protection for different events.
“People are searching customer reviews and reading articles about us to find out about the technology behind our product — they’re really doing their research,” Bodewes says. “Then, of course, the other trigger is the style perspective. They say they want earplugs that match their outfits, and our designs have that virality aspect thanks to these festival partnerships where they’re seeing them on their social feeds and they have that stopping power.”
The ‘small luxury’ jewellery opportunity
In the last couple of years, there’s been a proliferation of competitor brands entering the market, including Hears, Eargasm and Set NZ, which are also marketed as design-led products that make hearing protection look cool. Bob Verlaat, co-founder of Hears, tells Vogue Business the earplug brand has grown 30 per cent in the last year and is selling “around a thousand sets a day” this summer.
So far, a couple of luxury brands have experimented with earplugs, including Balenciaga, which released a premium Berlin Ball earplug earring late last year, which retailed for around $450, and Saint Laurent, which has also released its first $86 earplug in collaboration with Hears.
It’s this selling point that is driving Loop’s next expansional pivot: collaborating with fashion and jewellery brands. The brand has already tested customer appetite for jewellery-like designs at a higher price point in various drops over the last couple of years. The highest end test was a product called Loop Bling, a solid gold earplug encrusted with 120 diamonds worth $10,000 that the brand made just one pair of and released as a giveaway. It also experimented with another special-edition silver ear cuff earplug that it released to influencers to test product demand.
“These weren’t collaborations, they were us assessing the market, but they went down really well,” Bodewes says. “Now, we’ve got five or six products like this in development, and we’re releasing our first big collaboration with a fashion brand in Q3 or Q4 this year.”
Bodewes says the brand in question is “mid-market”, and they are open to testing collaborations with both higher end luxury players as well as streetwear brands to see which products sell best. Dream collaborators include Tiffany Co, Louis Vuitton and Supreme, he tells Vogue Business. The growing AI wearables space, which is currently dominated by tech companies collaborating with eyewear brands, is also a luxury growth opportunity, as the AI technology behind these devices becomes more advanced and compact. “The so-called ‘earables’ space is absolutely a thing, and we’re looking at how to incorporate electronics into our earplugs, too,” Bodewes says.
Trend forecasters say the functionality of earplugs helps younger consumers justify spending more on design-led products, opening up a big market opportunity for jewellery brands if they choose the right partners to get the fundamental protection technology right.
“This is a growth opportunity for brands if they prioritise both form and function — the tech behind the exterior design has to work,” WGSN’s Aquino says. “If it does, there is room for earplugs to become as common and expressive as sunglasses. Small luxuries like these matter to young consumers when big ones, like owning a home, are out of reach.”
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