Ondrej Holzman It can be a marketer's dream or a PR department's nightmare. Opinions vary, but one thing is certain Sunday rolls, which was made by Apple after an open letter addressed to him by singer Taylor Swift, has secured huge publicity for its new music streaming service, Apple Music. It will start in exactly one week.
Od introducing Apple Music at the beginning of June, there are passionate discussions about whether the Californian company can succeed in a market where established companies such as Spotify, Google Music, Pandora, Tidal or Rdio already operate, and different arguments are made. In reality, however, no one really knows yet who and how Apple Music can attack.
The WWDC keynote itself, where the new music service was introduced, was quite controversial. Although several faces appeared on the stage and Apple Music was gradually represented by Jimmy Iovine, Trent Reznor, Drake and Eddy Cue, they failed to sell the new product perfectly.
[do action=”citation”]Does Apple still have that much power in the music industry?[/do]
In the last week, the discussion regarding Apple Music has finally gone somewhere else. Instead of a service as such, it began to be discussed in a big way how artists would be compensated for the playback of their songs, and everything ended with a single point - a free three-month trial period, during which Apple originally planned not pay a cent to the artists.
Usually adamant in similar situations, however, Apple turned around within a few hours on Sunday, when it responded very flexibly to the complaints of the music community led by one of the most successful singers of today, Taylor Swift. She wrote in an open letter to Apple that she does not like the fact that during the three months during which Apple Music will be free as an enticement for new customers, the artists will not be paid for their work.
Taylor Swift is known as a campaigner against free (albeit ad-supported) streaming services. According to her, users should pay for any streaming, just as they would for traditional music purchases, so that artists can get the rewards they deserve. And it was on that account that she decided, as a kind of protest, not to provide at least her last album 1989 to any streaming service.
This is the case with Tidal, on the other hand Taylor Swift's Swedish Spotify has nothing due to its free version. Not even Apple has yet received an exception from the American pop star, but now everyone is watching closely to see if they can sway Taylor Swift to their side during the last week before the launch of their service. That would be a success that even the latest quirks, whether we consider them positive or negative PR, would be worth it.
Apple has always built on exclusive titles at least in part - as one case for all, let's mention the availability of the "digital" Beatles in iTunes - and also with Apple Music, it wanted to attract performers that cannot be found elsewhere. While it's not yet clear what the names will be, Taylor Swift's latest album would undoubtedly be a showcase for Apple Music.
For Apple, on the one hand, this could easily mean tens of thousands of customers simply because they cannot play the album 1989 elsewhere (it sold over 4,5 million copies and is the best-selling album in the United States last year and this year), and it would also it confirmed the power Apple still has in the music world. More than one company certainly negotiated with Taylor Swift about streaming her entire catalog, but now Apple has brought this game to a state where it can definitively break the XNUMX-year-old singer in a positive sense.
Although Taylor Swift criticized Apple in her letter, she did not forget to add that she has the utmost respect for the California company and also believes that Apple can be the one to finally do streaming right, for the benefit of everyone. Then when Eddy Cue reacted to her pleas in a flash and came out to meet the singer more than anyone would have expected until that moment, everything is on the right track for both sides to slap each other.
However, this has not happened yet. The 1989 album continues to remain exclusively "offline" and Apple executives are in for a hectic time in negotiations. If in a week they triumphantly announce that Taylor Swift will appear on Apple Music, including the album 1989, it will be a huge success, and the negative publicity that Apple is sacrificing several million of its giant pile of cash to heal will be forgotten. But does Apple still have that much power in the music industry? Will Jimmy Iovine help?
Just so that it is not a pre-arranged drama, how to draw attention to the new service. Thanks to this, it was written about on every possible site and for free :)
If it were true, thumbs up to Apple's marketing department….
That's exactly what I believe. This would fit Apple's perfect marketing, which is not visible at first glance.
Who is Taylor Swift?
Taylor Shit :-D
So I listened to the album... and it cannot be said that it is art....