Manifesting digital content in physical form seems to work pretty well as a go-to-market retail strategy.
Now Spotify, which itself is an unlimited shelf of intangible music, is getting on to retailers’ shelves by imitating iTunes Store’s tangible gift cards.
UK supermarket chain Morrisons has agreed to stock Spotify cards, which come in £10, £30 and £50 varieties and whose value can be redeemed against Spotify’s Premium and Unlimited or its song purchases.
Spotify hopes the cards will be purchased as Christmas and birthday gifts.
A growing number of digital-only services which depend on electronic payments have recently been regarding bricks-and-mortar stores as sales points…
- Facebook sells its Facebook Credits in card form.
- Zynga sells points for its games in this way.
- The Moshi Monsters kids brand sells collectible trading cards that double up for redeeming against in-world virtual items.
The strategy – go where untapped potential customers are. In online games and digital music, many of the target market may be too young to hold credit cards.
On a related note – Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has just wrapped its existing Gmail mobile website in an iOS app. Gmail’s web app has long been a decent way to access Gmail through iOS but, by being available through through a URL, has a small audience relative to the exposure it will now get through iTunes Store.
