British pop star Robbie Williams has signed an exclusive 18-month deal with T-Mobile where the operator will offer exclusive content, some of it embedded in handsets it sells. Williams is undoubtedly popular around the world — he’s sold 51 million albums — but are these kinds of exclusive deals what’s really going to make people believers in mobile music? It’s doubtful.
While some die-hard fans may be convinced to switch to T-Mobile for the exclusive content, the vast majority of people won’t care. When Apple launched iTunes, or Napster started, they weren’t built around a single artist, and that’s why they succeeded. There’s an implication in these sorts of single-star-centric promos that unless you’re a fan of this one particular person, that there’s nothing in the offering for you — and the number of potential users alienated by that far outweighs the number that will be attracted by it.
Cross-posted to The Mobile Music Blog.
Robbie Williams seems to be the poster child for new mobile content business models. Last winter EMI and CarPhone Warehouse in the UK issued his greatest hits + special content on a MMC memory card. From what I’ve heard CarPhone Warehouse is still selling it so it must have had some level of success.
Of course selling pre-recorded content on memory cards offers portability, something that a single-star-centric handset might not.
That, or they just can’t get rid of it
Thanks for the comment, John.
These deals cut both ways, when I was a Vodafone customer I was always aggrieved that my money was going to support Manchester United, Vodafone and David Beckham.
Now I’ve left Vodafone I’m far happier!