In the midst of the uproar in the music community regarding illegal file-swapping, musician Steve Winwood and Access Hollywood are using free music to drive album sales and traffic to the entertainment news magazine’s Web site.
The free eight-minute song, Dear Mr. Fantasy, is promoted on file-sharing sites such as Kazaa and Grokster. Each free download includes a five-second commercial, similar to a radio ad, directing users to AccessHollywood.com, where they can find additional content, Winwood tracks and a chance to win an autographed guitar. Winwood, a founding member of the band Traffic, will also tout his new CD, About Time.
As a result of the promotion, which began in late June, Winwood saw sales of his latest album quadruple in just three weeks. The track has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times so far. Listeners are driven online by way of a multimedia advertising campaign including TV spots and banner ads.
This experimental marketing alliance has been put together to demonstrate to the music industry the commercial potential of file-sharing networks like Kazaa. Pay-for-play sites such as Apple’s iTunes and Napster have launched promotions touting their offerings, however this is the first time free peer-to-peer networks have featured a promotional offer.
In addition to driving traffic to the Access Hollywood site, the promotion captures data from listeners and acts as a broadband media marketing experiment. New York-based Hearst-Argyle Television handles.
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