Learning to listen has been a game changer for Omar Johnson. In an interview with Marketing Week earlier this year, he said: “If you start with listening and curiosity, then you’ll always win because when you talk you are pushing information out, but when you listen you absorb it.” Johnson is committed to finding a path less trodden for the Apple-owned headphone and speaker brand and puts particular emphasis on the relationships that it builds with ambassadors such as rugby player Richie McCaw and comedian Tracy Morgan. “I always tell my team if it’s in Wikipedia, it’s not an insight because the rest of the world has it.” In order to find unique insights he organises what he calls “moments” such as dinners with the celebrity influencers to get a better understanding of who they are. “We’ve got to dig out that next thing that always comes in the second half of dinner,” he says.