Phone Companies Push Harder to Get You to Switch

Cingular Wireless made waves last month when it sponsored a battle of the bands on YouTube in search of the next Internet star. Verizon Wireless is working to edge out competitors by offering full-length music videos for ABC’s popular shows, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Lost via its V Cast Music service.

Wireless companies are in the midst of a raging battle, each attempting to win over a greater share of the more than 220 million, often fickle, cell phone subscribers. Music, the universal language, is the marketing weapon of choice as cell phones have morphed into MP3 and mini-movie players.

Cingular Wireless customers with LG CU500 models can press a musical note button and download Gnarls Barkley’s hit Crazy, or any number of other songs. They can record a 15-second sample song and then view the title and artist on the handset via Cingular’s MusicID service. If they like the song, they can download it to their phone.

“People want to be able to take their music with them everywhere they go,” says Mark Nagel, director, premium entertainment services, Cingular Wireless. “Cingular views music not only as a marketing tool, but as a way to connect with our customers in a pretty meaningful way.”

Cingular Wireless is leading the pack with some 57.3 million subscribers, but competitors Verizon Wireless (54.8 million), and Sprint (51.7 million), are close behind.

For its part, Sprint has distributed more than 5 million downloads via its Music Store, a service that lets customers sample and download digital music since its launch last October. Under a promotion that runs through Nov. 15, customers who buy two songs get one free. Weekly text messages and online materials tout the offer. Under the Sprint Music Series, subscribers receive exclusive audio and video from artists like Nelly Furtado and Keane and can buy live recordings — music tones, video ringers, call tones and full-song downloads — from the Music Store.

“Music is something people understand,” says Talha Ashraf, manager, Sprint Music Store.

“People are passionate about it. We wanted to leverage a device we all know people have.”

In a bid to gain an edge over Verizon Wireless’ V Cast service, Sprint boosted its wireless offering with Sprint Radio, which launched in August, featuring more than 50 channels of streaming radio and video.

“What makes music such a cool data product is people make it their own,” says Laura Reineke, marketing manager for Sprint Music. “Everyone is so into personalization. They can show people their style.”

While single-serve music downloads strike a note with consumers, full-track song downloads are gaining popularity, taking a larger share of the market. Mobile downloads are expected to account for 20% of full track sales by 2011, Tamara Conniff, executive editor/associate publisher of Billboard, said at the L.A. Roadshow Hollywood conference in September quoting Forrester Research statistics. Mobile music revenue is estimated to hit $14 billion by 2011, with full track downloads as the main driver. Ringtones, once the rave, are projected to take a dramatic drop from 81% of all mobile music sales to 51% by 2011, Conniff said quoting IDC, a market research firm based in Framingham, MA.

The average age of an entertainment downloader is now 38, according to Worthington, OH-based market research film BIGresearch. Sprint is going after that crowd by expanding its 500,000-plus song catalog to include “oldies” such as favorites from U2 and the B52s.

Women are now the driving force behind music sales in the U.K., usually a precursor of what’s to come to the U.S. Some 77% of women 16 to 45 own an MP3 player or an MP3 phone, according to a study by UK-based Emap. Some 80% of women said they spend more time listening to music compared to 75% of men, the study found.

“There’s a lot of appeal for having this mobile music experience,” Cingular’s Nagel says. “There’s a whole fleet of phones that allow you to…discover and share music.”

Nokia is rolling out a new service that lets music lovers sample tunes and get recommendations of undiscovered artists’ from music legend David Bowie and 40 record stores across the globe. Users register at MusicRecommenders.com to receive a playlist of 30-second samples via e-mail based on their tastes. Music fans — initially in Australia and the UK — can download tracks on their cell phones or MP3 players. Nokia will also feature Bowie in podcasts and he will appear in a short film by Wim Wenders.

“Everybody has a different passion for music,” says Johan Eidhagen, marketing director, Nokia multimedia. “Music is a way for people to express themselves, and we want to be part of that world.”

While Nokia will promote the service online, it’s stopping short of launching a full-scale marketing campaign and will rely heavily on word of mouth. “There’s no marketing scheme to bring people [to the site],” Eidhagen says. “This is absolutely about discovery. This has to grow by itself.”

Offline, Cingular and Sony Ericsson are sponsoring a concert series activated with a promotion that lets consumers send a text message to “FLASH” with their city’s code to receive alerts about concert details, VIP access and meet and greets with bands. Flash Concerts 2006, which kicked off in October, stops in 10 cities with artists The Game, Young Buck and My Chemical Romance through December.

Registered Cingular consumers are automatically entered in a sweepstakes for a chance to win one of five trips to see a Flash Concert in Las Vegas featuring My Chemical Romance. Other wireless users can enter at FlashConcerts06.com. The sweeps runs through Nov. 6. Online materials, signage and radio spots support. Cingular and Sony Ericsson handle in-house; The Rose Group, Los Angeles, handles p.r.

Not to be outdone, Verizon Wireless last month let customers handpick the next single off John Legend’s new album Once Again in an online contest. Fans with select phones sent the text message “LEGEND” to a shortcode to receive audio samples of Legend’s songs Show Me and Heaven Only Knows and voted on their favorite. One grand prize winner got the chance to tape an introduction to the chosen single to air on radio stations nationwide. In addition, the winner will attend a premiere performance by Legend in Europe.Verizon customers were among the first to hear Legend’s new songs as well as download full-length songs, ringtones and ringback tones before the album’s release on Oct. 24.

As cell phone technologies improve, experts predict even bigger movement in the music space for 2007 and beyond.

“The sky’s the limit,” Nagel says. “It’s going to be a pretty fun place to be.”

The Beat Goes On

Mixing music is what Verizon Communications hopes will add a little sizzle to its sales after it launched a new music tool to show off the power of its broadband service.

Visitors to BeatBoxMixer.com find five top beatboxers — Max B, Rahzel, Click, Butterscotch and Masai Electro — whose music can be sampled with a rollover of a mouse. Consumers can mix their own tunes, which can be saved to the Web site or e-mailed to friends. Visitors can also sample beatboxers’ creations as well as the most popular creations posted by users.

“By attaching ourselves to music, we’re actually digging into something that really connects with hardcore music fans,” says Michael D’Argenio, director, interactive marketing and design for Verizon Communications.

Verizon is largely relying on discovery, word-of-mouth marketing and the e-mail component of the tool to generate interest. Since the launch in July, more than 6,300 mixes have been saved to the site and users e-mailed more than 800 mixes to friends, he says.

A Beatbox Mixer page on social networking site MySpace.com, which launched in the summer, has drawn more than 184,000 visits, and as of last month, had about 12,000 “friends”, both Beatbox and music fans alike.

One friend, baban, a 20-year-old man from Ceres, CA, writes, “this thing is off the hook you guys! thanks for the add! keep bumpin’ y’all!!!” Another friend, petebox, a 17-year-old from India, posted a message, saying, “hey i have to say that this is a cool thing ya got going here im a beatboxer myself i like to bust some beats with my friends…”

Verizon Communications launched the tool as part of its ongoing “Richer. Deeper. Broader.” campaign and is using music as part of an umbrella marketing strategy to bring new subscribers and build loyalty with the old.

Beatboxing, also known as human orchestration, got its roots in the hip-hop and rap genre in the late 70s and early 80s. It includes rhythms and sound effects created by the mouth, tongue and throat.

“We really wanted people to connect with this genre,” D’Argenio says. “We’re looking to send the message that Verizon is not just a telephone company anymore. We’re able to offer rich experiences across multiple areas.”
— Amy Johannes R/GA, New York, Verizon’s interactive agency of record, handles the Web site. Online materials support. — Amy Johannes