p2pnet - rss feed: Starbucks and Big Music
p2pnet.net News:- You walk into a Starbucks outlet. Few people chat to each other and there are no hand motions as someone makes a point to someone else. The staff move around quietly, not wanting to make too much noise. All you hear is a low murmur.
That’s because most of the customers are wearing headsets and, locked into their tight little audio spaces, are earnestly ‘consuming’ - consuming Big Music ‘product’ along with their Starbucks coffee.
At least, that’s how Big Music, Hewlett-Packard and Starbucks picture the future because Starbucks is the latest firm to join Big Music’s current Corporate Sales Craze, with HP supplying the technology.
It’s called WDHALTDWMBWBGTMONH, short for we-don’t-have-a-lot-to-do-with-music-but-we’re-not-going-to-miss-out-no-how. And it’s all part of the Big Five music labels’ continuing efforts to somehow - anyhow - force their ‘product’ into the ears of ‘consumers’ who, industry puff pieces to the contrary notwithstanding, have made it abundantly clear they don’t want to know.
“A partnership with Hewlett-Packard will see customers ordering songs-to-go with their java,” chirps a BusinessWeek online story here. “It already has the labels singing a happy tune.”
The idea is you’d plug in and “listen to any of 250,000 songs you call up on a computer. Then order the ones you like - burned on your own CD - to go.”
Would that be the same ‘product’ the labels are trying desperately to retail online through ’stores’ they’ve persuaded Coke, Wal-Mart, Heinneken and other well-know music-loving companies to open?
Starbucks could make shopping for music both legit and fun again, says BusinessWeek.
Forget the Internet where more than four million simultaneous (but no doubt totally bored) users log on to p2p networks at any given moment, says Big Champagne ceo Eric Garland. And in terms of files, “there are as many as a billion exchanged monthly,” he says.
Unique users? More than 20 million a month.
But let’s not carp. This way, you can hook into a Hewlett-Packard computer fitted out with Carly Fiorina’s DRMÂ technology and listen to Big Music’s marginalized offerings. “BusinessWeek has learned that on Mar. 16, the Seattle coffee giant will unveil an in-store music service allowing customers to do just that, using Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ) tablet computers to make their choices,” it says.
Much better than merely enjoying your coffee and passing the time with friends. Or just watching the world go by. And don’t worry, ‘This is not a test,’ says Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz. ‘We’re going for it’.”
With, “30 million weekly customers who trust Starbucks not just for its many beverages but also for its ability to create an attractive lifestyle brand around upscale coffee culture, execs think they see a huge market for selling music,” continues the story.
‘Hey Courtney! I trust Starbucks not just for its many beverages but also for its ability to create an attractive lifestyle brand around our upscale coffee culture. Don’t you?’
“We have a unique opportunity to leverage the trust people have in the brand,”Schultz is quoted as saying.
“And for the [Big Music] artists making the music?” BusinessWeek goes on, ‘The artists don’t want to go to Wal-Mart,’ Schultz says. While he won’t discuss revenue projections, he sees the move as a ‘big idea’ with ‘much bigger impact than we’ve had to date.’
“The coffee chain already has licensing agreements with most of the major record labels that will give it the ability to offer everything from Britney Spears and The Polyphonic Spree to Yo-Yo Ma and Ray Charles, as well as everything in between.”
The company thinks the service, “will significantly add to its $4.1 billion in annual revenue while enhancing its brand and for the music industry, still reeling from digital piracy and sharply declining sales of CDs at brick-and-mortar record stores”.
There’s no indication of how much this is going to cost coffee-drinkers, but music execs love the Starbuck idea, adds the story.
“They are creating another way to recommend music to people and target a specific music buyer, bridging the gap between the digital and the physical,” says Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Universal Music Group’s Interscope, Geffen, and A&M labels. “Starbucks isn’t just adding music to their stores. They’re adding culture to the stores. They’re enhancing the customer experience.”
Yup.
“Although seven music retailers are planning a similar in-store setup under a new online company called Echo, they face an uphill battle to convince shoppers to return to their record stores,” says Businessweek, adding:
“Starbucks doesn’t have to worry about that. Schultz’s bet is that music will make Starbucks, as singer Norah Jones might say, a place that feels like home.”
Might she say that?
