A few days before we broke for Christmas, I was having lunch at the Athenian with one of our interns. I asked him how he felt about music-subscription services like Rhapsody. “Rhapsody?” he replied. To him, Rhapsody is little more than another unwanted accessory that comes with a new computer.
As I proceeded to explain how the Seattle-based subscription service works, and how the music-subscription experience has changed over the past decade, I realized just how dated the public perception of Rhapsody and its competitors is. People still think you can only play the songs on PCs and special Rhapsody players, which hasn’t been the case for some time. When I saw a commercial for Rhapsody over the holidays, I realized how off the company’s pitch is. If people have heard of Rhapsody, they associate the name with something they don’t want. If they thought otherwise, they’d already subscribe. But the commercial did nothing to offset the notion that Rhapsody is an antiquated Internet relic like AOL.
To become more than a niche business, Rhapsody—and competitors like MOG—need to sell not only their services, but the idea that leasing millions of songs a month for $10 is a better deal than buying an album a month for the same price. That hasn’t always been the case with music-subscription services.
Rhapsody needs to start having the same kind of conversation with potential customers that I had with our intern. Consider the following paraphrased account:
Me: When you subscribe to Rhapsody for $10 a month, you have unlimited access to their 10-million-song catalog.
Intern: So do you own the music?
Why would you want to own the songs?
Well, I like to download tracks and put them on my iPod. Or burn CDs.
Come on, when was the last time you burned a CD? I know I sound like I’m on the Rhapsody payroll, but when you subscribe to Rhapsody, you have access to all the songs on your computer, and when you’re on the go, you can access them on your iPhone via the Rhapsody app. You don’t need to own songs anymore. If you have access to the songs from anywhere, why would you need to “own” them? Access is better than ownership.
OK, but I don’t have an iPhone. I have an Android.
It works with Android phones, too.
Oh, that might be a game-changer.
The challenge for music-subscription services and the music industry—for some, converting nonpaying digital customers to all-you-can-eat subscribers is a bastion of hope for survival—is succinctly conveying this to people who wrote off Rhapsody et al. years ago.
MOG CEO David Hyman told us last year that he thinks the upside of deep-pocketed players like Apple and Google getting into the business would be the marketing dollars spent introducing listeners to the medium. This year, they are both expected to become music-subscription providers. A better pitch may make more of a difference than an expensive one.
