How Loop Earplugs made ear protection trendy

“Earplugs” may conjure images of those foam cylinders that protrude from your ears, but longtime friends Maarten Bodewes and Dimitri O set out to change that when they co-founded Loop Earplugs in 2016.

They’d been roommates in their native Belgium and loved seeing live music and car races, but both suffered hearing damage as a result.

“So Martin and I started testing all the products we could find out there” including “the ‘foamies’ you get for really cheap,” O told Retail Brew, “and basically, especially in the context of nightlife, came back quite disappointed.”

Along with finding some of the foam products uncomfortable, he thought they looked off-putting.

“You go out, you want to meet people, you dress up,” O said. “The last thing that you need is basically social barriers sticking out your ears.”

Using 3D printing, they produced their original Loop Earplugs, named for their Cheerios-shaped section that sits in the outer ear to keep them in place, in 2018. Available in an array of trendy colors, they’ve become what O called “conversation starters” rather than traditional earplugs or over-ear noise-cancelling headphones that are “basically signaling, ‘Leave me alone,’” he said.

Wirecutter deemed them The Best Earplugs for Concerts—no small feat because, as Wirecutter explained, the products are designed not to simply mute music but rather lower its volume without sacrificing its richness.

“Concert earplugs should sound far better than drugstore foam ones,” Wirecutter stated. “Vocals shouldn’t be muffled, low notes shouldn’t sound blurry, and you shouldn’t struggle to understand lyrics.”

The global earplug market will total an estimated $1.46 billion in 2025 and grow to $3.04 billion in 2033, according to Global Growth Insights.

Hush money: The brand reached 475,000 euros in revenue in 2019 (1 euro=$1.15 as of this writing), “but then in March 2020,” O said, “I don’t know if you recall what happened then.”

When Covid-19 struck, the purpose of Loop’s sole product was to protect the ears of consumers attending live shows, which of course came to an abrupt halt.

It was “textbook startup,” O said. “You hyper focus on one problem that you’re solving for a very specific group of people.”

Since people were not going to shows but rather social distancing at home, the brand decided to pivot by “trying to find different product market fits for the product that we had, and learn from the feedback on what a potentially second or third product would need to be.”

Today, along with its original product, which it calls Loop Experience, it sells two that block out more noise for sleeping or other reasons (Loop Quiet and Loop Dream), one that helps people trying to have conversations in loud environments (Loop Engage), and one that’s adjustable for all of the above (Loop Switch).

O said that the way the brand pivoted from promoting itself as strictly ear protection is reflected in the slogan it used most then and the one it uses most now.

Covid-19 “led us to repositioning the brand from ‘Protect your ears in style’... into, ‘Your life, your volume,’ which is a message of empowerment, of freedom: ‘I give you the tools so that you can choose how you want to hear the world.’”

One testament to how much the brand’s earplugs are being used for more than ear protection—and how much it may be expanding the category—is that 60% of its customers are first-time earplug buyers.

Another testament is its growth: Revenues totaled 190 million euros ($219.7 million) in 2024, up from 126.5 million euros ($146.3 million) in 2023.

The sound and the hurry: In October, Loop announced a partnership with Target, with the products available at more than 600 of the retailers’ locations and on its website.

While Loop characterized it in a press release as the brand’s “in-store retail debut” in the US, it’s actually the return to US brick and mortar after a five-year hiatus, as the brand had been in 7,000 CVS stores pre-pandemic, but pulled out when it pivoted to rejigger its approach in the US and Europe and expand its product line.

O said the brand plans to add other retail partners, too, because even consumers who already own Loops may find themselves in situations where they want them pronto but can’t find them or are away from home.

“We very strongly had a pull from our customers saying, ‘Can you please get to a place where I can buy them right now?’ So that is the reason that we’re going back into retail.”