Sony BMG has announced more plans for its Platinum MusicPass, the album-in-a-gift-card scheme that will allow people who pony up $12.98 to download MP3s* of the album touted on the card. In his analysis of the product, Glenn at Coolfer posits that Sony BMG is pitching the Platinum Music Pass as a gift idea; presumably it’ll be stocked with gift cards from companies like American Express and iTunes in the checkout aisles of retailers like Best Buy and Winn-Dixie. (And I do have to say that shrinking albums down to card size is an excellent way to respond to retailers’ slashing of floor space for music.) But let’s be honest: would you get your friend a Jennifer Lopez album on a plastic card as a way to say “happy birthday” or even “you might want to cut down on the blush”? Our poll on your preferred format for gifting music is after the jump.
Sony BMG trades cards for downloaded tunes [USA Today]
* Yes, they’re DRM-free. Welcome to spring 2007, Sony.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
I think that all new albums should be embedded in steaks. So you plug the steak into your computer and it uploads. Then you can cook the steak and eat it.
If you are a vegetarian, the RIAA gets to take you to court.
I think I touched most/all the salient points when we first discussed these cards. Of course they’re gift cards, and I think they’re as great an idea as any other gift card — even though I’ve only bought a handful over the years.
[idolator.com]
[idolator.com]
[sorry if that seems a little douchey...]
The whole point of gift cards is that it’s a blank check for the receiver to buy whatever they want with it. If I get a music gift card, I want it to enable me to buy whatever I want at Best Buy/iTunes/Amazon/whatever, not a weirdly formatted version of an album I may or may not want.
@Camp Tiger Claw: Better yet: you plug the steak into your computer and it cooks as it uploads.
@GovernmentNames: Your point is excellent, but I still like Sony’s strategy here. If the cards were simply “buy any album you want from the Sony store!”, they would still sell — maybe not well, but the cost-benefit ratio is so profoundly in Sony’s favor here that they don’t need to sell well. And I suspect you’ll eventually see “buy any album you want” cards, too. What Sony gets by selling specific albums is the tie-in with the artists’ brands — which Sony has also spent money trying to build up anyway.
Also, as the target market is “gift card givers” — i.e., “old fogeys” — Sony may be banking on the idea that Grandma and Uncle Ed will respond better to seeing the face and name of a familiar artist — “Gee, I bet little Jimmy would love to have that new Bruce Springsteen album, which he can get with this card!”
@aluberalles: You magnificent bastard, you’ve done it!
Maybe my thoughts on gift-giving are somewhat antiquated, but this just screams, “I’m a lazy gifter” and IMO is far more condescending than giving a regular gift card.
Here little Jimmy, I didn’t have much time to shop, so I grabbed this little plastic card off the checkout aisle display rack as I was leaving Best Buy. I could have spent three extra minutes perusing the racks for the actual CD that you could rip to your computer (since I’m going to make you do extra work and download the songs yourself anyway), but MAN those lines were long!
Yes, in terms of marketing, its a wonderful branding gimmick. But as someone who takes gifting seriously, I cringe. I would much rather say I have no f’ing clue what music you like, so here’s a gift card for $20 so you at least get to participate in the music-shopping experience (one of the great remaining joys of my life).
Wait, let me see if I understand.
You have to go to a place where you can buy CDs from.
You have to spend as much as a CD.
You get the same MP3 files that you get from a CD.
But you don’t get the CD?
In what way is this better than the alternative? It isn’t cheaper, more flexible, quicker, easier or as widespread.
I want my steak-puter.
@SomeSound-MostlyFury: I think they’re planning for the day when CDs, and the stores that sell them, won’t exist anymore. At which point you’ll buy stuff like this at, I dunno, Target or some-such.
If someone gave me a Celine Dion gift card I would pretend as if that person never existed on Earth.
hey, its a start…
If they were smart, they’d market these as double packs. Give them the album and when they’re at the store downloading that album, they can also choose one more. That way, you still get the brand recognition of Jennifer Lopez, but if Grandma gives you JLo, you can still download whatever Sony has in their online store.
I’m struggling to figure out whether this is more or less tacky than just giving someone a regular gift card.
This comment thread just mad me really hungry. Also sad.
*made
iTunes already does something like this – Starbucks sells cards for whatever their featured album is. Though it kinda makes sense at Starbucks, since they’re trying to get the impulse buyers who hear the featured shit but may not have a laptop handy (wait, who the fuck goes to Starbucks without a laptop these days?). In a music store, slightly less so, maybe.
i would use
hmmm,
[www.suck.uk.com]
these, if they weren’t TWENTY QUID each