SFR Music

Thomas Husson | June 12, 2008, 04:35 AM

Echoing Mark's Mulligan take on Orange Musique max and the launch of Napster Mobile, unlimited music subscriptions are gaining ground and are welcomed by the music industry in the fight against piracy.

Despite the price (TDC in Denmark launched a similar but not equivalent offering for free last April), Orange's offering looks quite compelling and the 2-month free promotion is interesting to foster subscription to the brand new Origami Star package and discovery of mobile music. It is by the way another sign that mobile music aims at achieving various goals for telcos and is very far from being a pure content revenue play.

I think one key element is to make sure that once you upgrade your phone (of if it is lost or stolen), you will still be easily able to access your digital collection. This is true for many content categories (not only music) and for your own adress book and a key issue in maintainng satisfaction and loyalty among customers.

In the same vain, SFR just announced an equivalent offering (also priced at 12 euros a month but with a more limited catalogue) and they announced to have passed the 100,000 subscribers mark to SFR Music. It went almost unnoticed that 2 years ago, SFR had launched an unlimited offering! However, the context is here very different and the marketing approach is simply excellent. 2 weeks ago I attended a music gig in le Zenith (one of the largest concert halls in Paris), leaflets promoting SFR Music were distributed on every single seat:

The interesting point here is that SFR music subscribers will also get rewards such as 10% discounts on their preferred music gigs via SFR billeterie. SFR also partnered with La Cigale (another concert hall) where interesting concepts such as live events and mobile tickets are experienced.

As part of SFR's music strategy, it is also worth having a look at SFR Jeunes Talents (a website to promote and discover young artists).