BuyMusic CEO: It Won't Be Apple Driving The Music Download Business

by , 9:30 AM EST, December 22nd, 2003

Would you ever buy a Pepsi? What if you got free music out of the deal? Pepsi and other companies are betting on such promotions to help push even more product, according to an article at Reuters. In addition to the Apple-Pepsi deal, Miller Brewing has teamed up with Roxio to give away Napster-branded portable MP3 players. According to the article, such campaigns are in the works for airlines, credit card companies, and even McDonald's. From Reuters:

The promotions come at a time when brand marketers, particularly beverage companies, are looking to establish broad connections between music and their products -- a strategy well-served by digital music giveaways.

Music giveaways are understood to foster customer loyalty. What's more, they provide consumers with powerful incentives to use the related products, executives say.

The trend has major implications for the nascent digital music business.

Campaigns from Pepsi, Miller and others can educate consumers about online music in a way that is outside the scope of most digital music companies, Apple aside.

What's even more interesting is that BuyMusic (BM) CEO Scott Blum says that it will be these giveaways, and not Apple or the iTMS, that drives the market. From the article:

"You're going to see lots of free music given out via third-party companies," buymusic.com founder Scott Blum says. "It's not going to be Apple and iTunes driving the business. It's going to be companies like Pepsi and other third parties that are promoting digital music on bottle caps and on labels."

Earlier this month, Mr. Blum also noted that he and his Windows Media-using peers in the online music service business weren't coming close to Apple's 1.5 million downloads per week.

You can read the full article at Reuters.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Good ol' Scott Blum. He may or may not have intended his as a Death Knell of sorts, but it's more likely that he meant that the tie-ins and giveaways would push the online music business further than Apple will on its own. What he doesn't include (probably because he doesn't believe it) is that those tie-ins and giveaways will be pushing people to the iTMS, and not BM, Napster, MusicMatch, etc. At least that's our prognostication.

All of the other services have been non-starters so far, and that observation is coming from people who felt it likely that Napster and MusicMatch both would be giving Apple a run for its money.

Really, though, we're wandering a bit off-topic. The real point is that there are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of free downloads a-comin'. It should make things even more interesting.

Reuters Article