Complete My Album’s False Promise
This post is part of a series that analyzes Apple's Complete My Album offering.
1. Apple Pimps The Single
2. Complete My Album Is Incomplete
3. Complete My Album Is For Singles
4. Complete My Album's False Promise
5. Albums & Fries
For the recording industry Complete My Album promises to provide incremental revenues and capture sales of customers who wouldn't have bought the album. But that may be a mirage.
In an earlier post we explored how Complete My Album incents customers to buy singles and not necessary albums. Let's look at three online music buyers.
FANS. Fans are going buy the album one way or another, and are relatively price-insensitive. Those who first bought singles endured double dipping when they bought the album. Complete My Album generates less money by crediting them with singles buys.
TYPICAL CUSTOMER. Typical online customers buy singles only. They will continue to do so. Typical customers don't buy albums because of the cost or risk, but because the quality is lacking. Complete My Album has little to offer them and so will have a small effect.
ALBUM-FRIENDLY. A small part of online buyers have bought albums and may do so again. Complete My Album incents them to start with singles first and allows them to make a more informed decision about the album purchase. While some from this group will buy the album, others won't.
The economic question is will the added album upgrade sales from the Typical Customer market segment make up for the lost sales from the Album-Friendly segment who don't upgrade?
I don't think so. It's even or revenue-negative. I submit that the Album-Friendly segment is significantly impacted. As online marketers know, a buying decision delayed is a buying decision lost.
In any case the effect on overall revenues will be negligible. The more important issue is where Complete My Album leads the industry, which will be covered in the final post of the series,
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