| Monster Cable Products, Inc. | |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Headquarters | Brisbane, California |
| Key people | Noel Lee, Founder, CEO ("Head Monster") |
| Industry | Consumer electronics |
| Products | Cables, Loudspeakers, Headphones, Audio equipment |
| Employees | 600+ |
| Slogan | Get all the Performance You Paid For |
| Website | www.monstercable.com |
Monster Cable Products Inc. owns the Monster Cable brand of consumer audio and video cable, which is primarily used to connect audio and video components. In addition to cable, the company produces consumer electronics accessories, including power conditioning equipment and iPod accessories under a breadth of brands, including Monster Power, Monster Mobile, Monster Performance Car, Monster Game, Monster Photo, and M•Design. The company holds over 200 patents and offers more than 4,000 products in more than 100 countries. In November 2005, the company launched a music label, Monster Music, releasing audio recordings in high definition surround sound on DVD media. Monster holds the naming rights to the San Francisco 49ers stadium at Candlestick, Monster Park.
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History
Monster Cable Products (Monster) was founded in San Francisco in 1978 by musician and audiophile Noel Lee. The company is based today in Brisbane, CA, and has additional offices in Ennis Ireland, London U.K. and Hong Kong with about 650 employees, most of them in the US headquarters. The company is privately held, hence it does not publish its sales figures, however industry sources estimate its annual revenue to be around US$500 million. In recent years, faced with increasing competition in the consumer electronics market and in an attempt to reduce costs, the company outsourced much of its production lines. This has resulted in several rounds of layoffs, reducing its workforce by 30%. The recent round, in October 2006 drew criticism from San Francisco Bay Area media and politicians blaming the company for treating its long time production employees, many of whom were older immigrants, unfairly.
Controversy
Quality and Pricing
Monster Cable and similar "boutique" cables are a main source of revenue for retailers of electronics such as DVD players and TVs. While the margins of DVD players and TVs are usually quite low, the high margins of Monster Cables and similar products provide important revenue for these retailers. The heavy marketing and corresponding bundling of Monster Cable and similar products are de-facto procedures for employees at these resellers. Whether Monster cables actually provide better quality sound or video than generic cables is a highly debated topic among the audio and videophile communities. Various reviews have reported that listeners and viewers are unable to tell a difference between substantially higher-priced Monster cables and inexpensive cables, [1][2][3] especially for cables which carry digital signals such as HDMI cables .[4]
Trademark
Monster Cable is aggressively protecting its name and trademark by filing numerous lawsuits and trademark infringement claims against dozens of companies for using the word "monster" in names, products or services.[5] Monster Cable CEO Noel Lee defended these actions by saying "We have an obligation to protect our trademark; otherwise we'd lose it" [1]. Some of the items they are suing about are:
- Monster Garage
- Monster House
- Monster Energy Drink
- MonsterHTPC
- Snow Monsters (a kid's skiing group)
- MonsterVintage, small used clothing store
- Monsters, Inc., an animated feature film
- Monsters of the Midway, a nickname of the Chicago Bears football team
- Fenway Park's Monster seats
- Monster.com employment website
Products
References
- ^ Raskin, Jef. Silicon Superstitions. ACM Queue vol. 1, no. 9. December/January 2003-2004.
- ^ Meyers, Peter. BASICS; The PC as D.J., Talking to the Hi-Fi. New York Times. January 24, 2002.
- ^ Captain, Sean. The Cable Game. PC World, August 02, 2005.
- ^ "The Truth About Monster Cable", Gizmodo. Retrieved on 2007-12-17.
- ^ Evangelista, Benny. Monster fiercely protects its name. SFGate.com. November 8, 2004.
