Digital

Most boring press conference of the month: Spotify does Coke

By | Published on Thursday 19 April 2012

Spotify

OK, web companies, take note. You all have your clever ad-funded services that a really cheap to run once they’re up and running, meaning you can offer bargain basement advertising rates. Meanwhile us dinosaurs in the old school media insist on producing buckets of original content every day of the week. Which is really expensive to do. So our ad rates are higher, meaning we’re selling less advertising than you over there in billion dollar profit web-land.

That means our budgets have been slashed, so we’re all over-worked and under-resourced, so while we still have a reputation for long boozy lunch breaks and swanning off at two o’clock to stuff our faces with cake and beer at some nonsense press junket, in reality we’re all very very very busy these days. Especially now we’re not allowed to source all our stories from people’s voicemails. So stop staging pointless press conferences that just distract everyone. Thank you.

Actually, to be fair, Spotify’s running costs are pretty high, even if it is licensing other people’s content rather than creating its own. And I should add that at CMU are budgets were always tiny, so our lives haven’t changed much. We’ve always been very very very busy and not had time for non-story press events. Despite our love of cake and beer. But Spotify is becoming a leader in the staging of non-story press conferences, and it’s starting to really show in the coverage it receives.

This is bad news for Coca-Cola, whose partnership with the streaming platform (and not the highly anticipated iPad app) was the subject of yesterday’s Spotify non-news-conference. It might be the most exciting brand-music venture since the last one (anyone remember how exciting the MyCokeMusic download store was?), but it just wasn’t big enough news to warrant a special gathering in New York. Spotify does deals with brands every day, and Coke does music sponsorship every day too.

All of which is a very long-winded way of explaining why we didn’t bother to digest the press release Spotify emailed out as their press junket began yesterday (and it has nothing to do with the fact I’m a Pepsi drinker). They’re doing something you probably didn’t need to know about. Here are some quotes…

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek: “Coca-Cola is the most recognised and respected brand in the world and we are proud to be their music partner. Spotify and Coca-Cola both believe that music, technology and creativity can connect people around the globe”.

Coke’s Director of Global Entertainment Marketing Joe Belliotti: “At Coca-Cola we have long recognised the power of music to connect people around the world. As we step up our activation through Coca-Cola Music, we are excited by the innovative music technology platform created by Spotify and the opportunity to create a truly global music network. The potential for this partnership is limitless”.

PS: We still think Spotify’s among the best of the streaming platforms. We just wish they’d get on with being brilliant, and spend less time making non-announcements. And make an Android app that works. Actually, they’ve just announced a new one of those, so perhaps they have. Why didn’t they announce that yesterday, instead of some run of the mill sales transaction?



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