New Report: Building the New Business Case for Bundled Music Services

Today MIDiA Consulting is proud to announce the release of a white paper commissioned by Universal Music entitled “Building the New Business Case for Bundled Music Services”.  The report, written by myself and MIDiA Consulting co-founder Keith Jopling, provides an unprecedented analysis of telco music services, taking a critical look at what has and had not worked to date and a series of models and recommendations for the future.  We interviewed a host of telco music executives to get a deep understanding of what telcos need out of music services to make them a success and combined this insight with data from consumer surveys and music service trials as well as case studies and best practices.  We think it is pretty much the definitive piece of work on the topic (!) and we invite you to download it here: Building the New Business Case for Bundled Music Services – FULL REPORT.  You can also download an executive summary version of the report here: Building the New Business Case for Bundled Music Services – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.

Here are some of the key findings of the report.

The consumer shift from downloads to streaming is the most important digital music market trend since the advent of the iTunes Music Store.  Before streaming services telcos struggled to find a way in which they could compete in a market dominated by Apple, restricted to selling DRM locked downloads that of course would not play on Apple devices.  Subscription services changed all of that, with the leading streaming services all pursuing robust telco partnership strategies as well as a number of download subscription services.  There are now nearly 50 telco music service partnerships live in six regions across the globe.  With 40% of streaming consumers now paying to stream, generating $1.2 billion in trade revenue in 2012 the opportunity is clear.

However it is clear that many of the hurdles that telcos faced in the last decade continue to pose challenges.  These include music not being a priority for many telcos, internal business casing getting in the way of building compelling services and the wrong success metrics being used.

The new success stories of telco music services are those that make music a strategic priority.  This is not some sop to the record labels, but a reflection of what it takes to make music strategy a success. If a telco just adds music to a long list of Value Added Services (VAS) it will wither on the vine.  But if a telco puts a music service front and centre and positions around it then success is far more likely.  Success stories that have followed this approach include Telia Sonera’s hard bundle with Spotify in Sweden and Cricket Wireless’ Muve Music in the US.

The Role of Promotional Offers

For all the obvious synergies of telco music bundles there is a real danger that hard bundles that make music subscriptions free or feel like free to the end user run the risk of devaluing the proposition.  Yet it is also clear that consumers need to be able to ‘suck it and see’ before subscribing so promotional free trials and limited period bundles present a strong balance of value to the consumer, cost effectiveness to the telco and protecting the integral value of music for artists and labels.  The market data for free trial is compelling: half of one month trialists convert to a paid subscription at the end of the promotional offer period.

Customer Satisfaction, the New Music Service Opportunity

An entirely new aspect to music bundling that we dive into in the report is the role of music subscriptions in driving customer satisfaction across a telco’s wider business.  Even the most edgy, cleverly positioned challenger telco is ultimately a provider of important products but not usually a consumer passion point.  Music though has that brand passion secret sauce and partnering with the right music service can enhance the telco’s own brand and customer sentiment.  Smart integration of music into the customer journey and integration with customer satisfaction measurement tools, particularly Net Promoter Score (NPS) can enable telcos to create a customer satisfaction halo effect.  With music converting satisfied music subscription customers into highly vocal net promoters with satisfaction benefits felt across the full range of a telco’s services.

Bundled music services did not get off to the best of starts, but now their time has come, giving telcos the opportunity to assume centre stage in the digital music marketplace.

For more information on the research please feel free to email us at info AT midiaconsulting DOT COM.

About MIDiA Consulting

MIDiA Consulting is a boutique, media industry focused consultancy that delivers practical, results-driven outcomes.  MIDiA stands for Media Insights & Decisions in Action. Our mission is to help media and technology companies develop purposeful strategies quickly through market understanding, clarity of vision, and workable innovation.

We help media and technology companies make sense of the changes that digital market forces are bringing about. And we help them make profits from digital content.

http://www.midiaconsulting.com

info@midiaconsulting.com

Deezer, Spotify and the Streaming Gold Rush

The music streaming world is one full of contrasts and inconsistencies.  At one end We7 and MOG sell for peanuts;  in the middle Rhapsody, Sony, Rdio, Wimp, Rara and others continue to steadily build a market; and at the other end Deezer and Spotify are sucking in investment with the force of a black hole. Spotify’s investment is well documented, but this week Deezer confirmed their seat on the fast train with a $100m investment from Access Industries, which also just happen to own Warner Music.

Leaving aside for a moment the intriguing fact that the two streaming global super powers are European, Deezer has managed to slip beneath the radar of the often US-skewed digital music world view by pointedly deciding to ignore the US market (for now).  Like a canny general who decides to march around a heavily fortified stronghold and thus effectively leave it stranded behind enemy lines, so Deezer expects the streaming war to waged on different shores.  They are both right and wrong.

The US is Saturated and Yet Potential Remains Untapped

There is no doubt that the US paid streaming market is overly catered for at present, and that Deezer would struggle to get any foothold.  Also there is clearly a much bigger scale opportunity in the remainder of the globe.  However, and somewhat paradoxically, the US market should also have much much more space, plenty enough for Deezer, Spotify and the rest to flourish in.  The problem is that the $9.99 streaming monthly subscription is not a mass market value proposition and it is not about to suddenly become one. We have had the product in market for over a decade, if it was going to hit hockey stick growth we’d have seen it by now.

To be clear, this is not to say streaming music is not a mainstream proposition, but that the $9.99 streaming subscription is not.  And that is a problem, because it is clear that for the economics of streaming to add up (for artists, services and labels alike) scale is key.  Pandora’s Tim Westergren has made the case for lower statutory streaming rates to drive scale, it is probably time to start a parallel dialogue for on-demand streaming.

But lower wholesale rates alone won’t fix the problem.  The market still desperately needs more mobile carriers, ISPs and device companies to start hiding in their core products some or all of the cost of subscriptions to consumers.  Cricket Wireless, Telia Sonera, France Telecom and of course TDC have all made solid starts but more, much more, is needed.

Price Is the Biggest Barrier to Streaming Going Mainstream

If streaming is to go mainstream the price point (for streaming with full mobile device support) has got to get towards $5, through a combination of bundling and rate discounting. Until then Spotify’s and Deezer’s gold rush millions will achieve little more than saturate the high end aficionados that the $9.99 price point appeals to.  Currently both companies look remarkably similar in terms of user metrics (see figure) but while they pursue somewhat distinct geographic priorities they will continue to find those few per cent of aficionados in each market.  Things will get really interesting when they reach $9.99’s adoption glass ceiling.

Apple: the Elephant in the Room

And of course there is an elephant in the room: Apple.  Apple have played their hand cautiously to date, conscious of their hugely influential role in the digital market and indeed in the music industry more broadly.  If they get their streaming play wrong (and there will be an Apple streaming play eventually) the results could be catastrophic for the music industry.  Apple’s 400 million credit card linked iTunes accounts dwarves Spotify and Deezer so it is understandable that the they each want to make hay while they can.  But the streaming pricing problem still needs fixing, and soon.

2008: The Year of Free

This time last year I predicted that 2008 would be ‘The Year of Free’. (Targeted legal free that is, not the ‘let’s give it all away and hope for the best’ flavour of free I’ve been posting about here recently.) Though all music can’t ‘just be free’, free services are a crucial element of blended digital music strategies. As the year draws to a close we can see just how fundamentally the digital music market changed in 2008. (See the list of developments at the bottom of this post).

2008 was the year in which the music industry accepted the fact that the only way to fight free is with free. That the only way to engage young digital consumers that have grown up with file sharing is to offer them something genuinely comparable in experience and price (i.e. free). Back in 2005 I wrote in a Jupiter report that if the industry didn’t start offering these young consumers free music they would become a demographic time bomb for future music revenues. Now finally we’re seeing these strategies starting to happen.

Today’s announcement from TeliaSonera illustrates just how far digital music strategies have come since I wrote that report, but also how there is still much distance to go. TeliaSonera’s Telia Musik service will offer unlimited free music to all of its mobile and PC broadband customers across 6 markets for 3 months. Telia can expect robust take-up and to bring many new consumers into the digital music fold. But as soon as they start trying to charge for the service they can expect the vast majority of these new customer to go.

To paraphrase, Free is not just for Christmas, Free is for life. You can’t just use it as a loss leading customer acquisition tool. That both falls short of its potential but is also damaging. Free services are invaluable when targeted at specific target groups who are unlikely to spend anything. Target it at all consumers and it weakens overall perceptions of the value of music as a paid commodity.

Free should be a crucial element of multi-tiered digital music strategies, based upon sophisticated segmentation of the consumer marketplace, working on the underlying assumption that one size does not fit all. But equally sophisticated consumer life-cycle management is equally important to ensure valuable customers are migrated to premium offerings.

Here’s my Top Ten of the ‘the Year of Free’ (i.e. services that launched or had a key event in 2008 ) Let me know who you think I’ve missed but should have included.

2008: The Year of Free Top 10

1. Comes With Music (UK launch)
2. TDC Play (Danish launch)
3. MySpace Music (US launch)
4. Pandora (2 million iPhone downloads)
5. Last.FM (downloads launch)
6. Spotify (ad supported tier)
7. We7 (Repositioning & relaunch)
8. Telia Musik (Nordic & Baltics launch)
9. Blip.FM (surge in adoption mid 08 )
10. Qtrax (US label deals signed)

Music Mistakes, Myths and Misconceptions. Part 3: Subsidized

One again, continuing my bid to provide more fuel for the ‘music should be free’ fire this is the third in my short series of ‘Music Myths, Misconceptions and Mistakes’ posts, tackling one big ‘free’ issue at a time.  Today’s topic is Subsidized* (the previous two posts can be found here: Part 1: File Sharing  Part 2: Ad Supported). 

 

*i.e. a service where all or most of the cost to the consumer is paid for by the content provider e.g. Nokia’s Comes With Music (CWM),  Sony Ericsson’s Play Now plus (PNp) and TDC’s Play

 

Subsidized: 10 Mistakes, Myths and Misconceptions

 

1.      Misconception: subsidized offerings will not further erode consumer perceptions of music as a paid commodity. Whatever the restrictions on marketing (see #2) consumers are smart enough to perceive CWM as being free music: they pay nothing for the music and the device costs the same as without the music.

2.      Mistake: not calling CWM ‘Free’ or ‘Unlimited’.  ASA concerns for the latter, and label imperatives for the former, mean that CWM cannot be marketed to its strengths.  The effect described in #1 will happen regardless of whether the messaging is overt.  Weakening the message will only weaken consumer adoption.

3.      Myth: Subsidized offerings are a necessary but ultimately short-term tool for driving digital music adoption . A whole digital generation has grown up with no concept of paying for music online.  Those habits are engrained.  Free, subsidized services, and ad supported, will become permanent features of the digital music landscape.

4.      Mistake: Managing consumer life cycles. Make no mistake, lots of mistakes will be made (!) as the industry learns how to manage these services.  One of the biggest challenges is correctly segmenting users into those who will never pay, and those who can be migrated up the food chain.

5.      Mistake: Positioning. Services like CWM and PNp can’t be allowed to be too successful – they need to be focused on core target consumers (e.g. young file sharers) and not be widely adopted by strong music buyers, else their spend will be cannibalized.

6.      Myth:  CWM and PNp will revolutionize the digital music market in the next 5 years. These services are vastly important (arguably the biggest thing to happen to the music industry in years) but their core impact will be longer term.  Near term growth will be slowed by geographic roll-out, consumer awareness / education, handset replacement cycles, value-chain tensions.

7.      Misconception: Subsidized offerings will not cannibalize premium digital spending.  As long as targeting is kept tight, negative impact on spending on operator OTA services and online stores should be minimal, but it will decrease a little, though overall revenues will increase due to licensing income. 

8.      Misconception: Consumers will not ‘max-out’ these services. TDC’s Play service has had phenomenally high usage rates (see my post here for details).  When people get unlimited access to free music, they use it!

9.      Mistake: Not having licensed to fully subsidized offerings sooner.  CWM etc. are the best tools the music industry has to fight file sharing with.  They should have licensed to them sooner.

10.  Mistake: If licensing terms don’t enable Nokia etc.to make money.  If fully subsidized service business models are not financially viable (which doesn’t necessarily mean profitable BTW) their current proponents will eventually move onto something else, leaving what will be a gaping hole in digital music provision, which will quickly be filled by illegal free alternatives again.