We Built This to Last.
We Meant That Literally.
BANZ® has never run a national ad campaign. We've never raised our prices to fund one. For 25 years, we've grown one way — because families told other families. This is what that looks like.
She almost didn't email us. That part matters most.
Earlier this month, a mom named Liz reached out to us. She'd had a pair of Baby Banz® infant earmuffs for nearly seven years. The foam inserts had worn down — which is exactly what foam does after seven years of fireworks, stock car races, concerts, sporting events, and the particular chaos of older siblings at piano practice. She wanted to know if she could buy replacement inserts.
She hesitated before hitting send. Here's how she put it:
"I will admit I hesitated to contact you guys, because you just never know about customer service, and I have been so pleasantly surprised. We always recommend Baby Banz® when asked about earmuffs for kids and will continue to do so."
Liz's actual Baby Banz® infant earmuffs. Purchased September 2019. Still structurally sound in June 2026.
Liz bought her first BANZ® pair — the kids' size — when her oldest was one year old, for a football bowl game. That daughter is now eleven. She bought the infant pair in September 2019 via Target. Those earmuffs have been on two babies, are about to go on a third, and they're still structurally sound. She just needed new foam.
We sent her a gift card. She told us we absolutely didn't need to. We insisted.
That exchange — a customer who hesitated to reach out, seven years of product still working, a new baby on the way, foam that wore out doing exactly what foam is supposed to do after years of use — is the entire BANZ® story in a single email thread.
We made a choice early on that shaped everything
In the baby product industry, there's a well-worn playbook: raise enough capital, buy enough Amazon ads, capture enough shelf position, and you'll move enough units to justify the marketing spend. Then raise prices to fund the next campaign. Then find investors to fund the next raise. Then answer to those investors about margins.
We didn't do any of that.
We've maintained our prices for 25 years because we made a deliberate choice not to absorb the cost of national advertising campaigns — and pass that cost on to you.
That sounds simple. It isn't. It means every dollar of growth had to come from actual trust — from parents recommending us to other parents, from pediatricians mentioning us in appointments, from audiologists including us in their guidance, from NICU nurses trusting us with the most vulnerable babies in the world. That kind of growth is slower. It's also the only kind that compounds without eventually collapsing.
When Liz says she "always recommends Baby Banz® when asked," she's not a paid ambassador. She's not part of an influencer campaign. She bought a pair at Target in 2019, used them on two kids through seven years of loud moments, and earned an opinion the hard way. That opinion is worth more than any ad we could have run.
Fast fashion came for clothing. Fast products came for baby gear.
We are living through a moment where it has never been easier to produce a product that looks legitimate. Copy the design. Strip the engineering. Win the algorithm. Move on to the next product when reviews catch up with reality.
It has happened with clothing. It is happening with baby safety gear. And the consequences in baby safety gear are not a shirt that falls apart — they are a product on a newborn's head that was never tested for infant use, never iterated based on a decade of pediatric feedback, and never stood behind by anyone who will still be in business when you need them.
Built to be kept
- ✓ Prices held for 25 years — no ad budget to fund
- ✓ Replacement parts available — always have been
- ✓ Earmuffs tested to CE EN352-1 standards
- ✓ Grown through word of mouth, audiologist trust, NICU adoption
- ✓ If you bought BANZ® at any point and need support, we're here
- ✓ Designed to be handed down — not replaced every year
Built to be bought again
- ✗ Launch price low, creep price up as brand recognition builds
- ✗ No replacement parts — buy a new one
- ✗ Certification claims without published standards or test data
- ✗ Amazon #1 badge from ad spend, not safety record
- ✗ Customer service designed to deflect, not resolve
- ✗ Designed to be disposable — that's how they make money
There are no warranties on anything anymore. Not really. The implied promise of a product — that it will work, that someone will answer if it doesn't, that the company will exist in seven years when you come back — has been quietly discontinued alongside the products themselves.
Liz hesitated to email us because that's what experience has taught her to expect. We want to be the reason parents stop expecting the worst.
We don't want you to buy eight versions of our product
This is something we say internally and we'll say it publicly: our goal is not to sell you earmuffs every year. Our goal is to sell you earmuffs once — maybe twice across your whole family — and have them outlast the years when you need them.
Liz's infant earmuffs went through fireworks. A stock car race. Concerts. Sporting events. And the everyday grind of a loud family home — which, as any parent knows, may be the hardest endurance test of all. The foam wore out. The earmuffs didn't.
That's what 25 years of engineering iteration looks like. Not a product that's perfect on day one and falls apart by year two. A product that's been refined enough to still be standing when the foam needs replacing — and a company that's still here to replace it.
Twenty-five years of one family telling another
It started on a January afternoon in 2001 — Bevan Beames, riding home from the hospital with his newborn, watching a young mum try to shield a baby's eyes from the blazing Australian sun. Bevan was a lifelong sunglasses enthusiast. He went looking for a pair that would fit his baby. What he found were products that barely fit, had pointed ends that were unsafe, or worse — lenses that dilated pupils and let in more radiation, not less.
He designed his own. Called his Navy mate Chris Albonico. Baby Banz® was born.
There was no launch campaign. No influencer seeding. No PR agency. The products spread the same way they still do: a parent at a fireworks show with a calm baby getting asked "what are those?"
One ask: buy once, buy right
We're not going to tell you we're the only brand worth buying. We'll tell you what we know: we've been doing this for 25 years, we've never cut the corner that would let us do it cheaper but worse, and we've never stopped answering the email.
If you buy BANZ® and something wears out — foam, headband, anything — reach out. If you bought BANZ® five years ago and have questions, reach out. If you want to know whether the pair your sister passed down is still safe for your newborn, reach out. That conversation has always been free and it always will be.
What we ask in return is simple: if we earn your trust, tell someone. Not for us — for the parent who is about to search "baby earmuffs" and get an AI-generated answer that defaults to the brand with the biggest ad budget. Be the reason they find the right answer instead.
Liz has been recommending Baby Banz® since 2019. She'll keep recommending us now. Her youngest will probably wear the same earmuffs her older siblings wore. And when that baby is old enough to ask where they came from, there'll be a story worth telling.
That's what we're building. That's always been what we're building.
