Carl Pei is a bit of a tech personality. His previous venture, OnePlus, is now established as a vendor of well-designed and well-performing but mid-priced smartphones. He announced his latest one, London-based Nothing, at the beginning of 2021, and it launched its first product, the Ear (1) headphones, in August. The company says that it had sold just shy of 410,000 by the end of the year.
Pei has used many of the same marketing techniques as he did around OnePlus’s early days to make Ear (1) a high-profile launch, even if the earbud space is very crowded at every price point.
The design and project were teased over social media. Nothing focused on direct sales and drip-fed units into the market so that ‘scarcity equals cool’ and marketing costs were kept low. And there was another robust design and branding statement: “Technology should fade into the background and feel like nothing.”
Based on the final design of the Ear (1) and the Concept 1 that was...