In a move that’s bound to raise a few eyebrows in many different industries, Sony BMG has granted Gresso, the makers of a "luxury" mobile phone which is made from African Black Hardwood, license to produce and market a "luxury" USB stick, with 1GB memory on it, that will feature the new J-Lo album on it.
Priced at $70 (£35 approx) the stick isn’t actually that expensive when you put together the price of a 1gb stick (about £12 average) and a CD from a store on the high street (£16.99 RRP) – adding about £6 or £7 to the total price. Of course, that’s in the USA so things are always cheaper over there.
What’s interesting is the merge of physical marketing product with a campaign and a promotion. This trend keeps moving on, the merging of the real and the digital worlds until they meet together in the form of a new (ok, not so new in this case) product, like Nike+ (it’s OK, I just put £1 in the nike+_as_an_example swear box!)
Whether this will sell or not I have to say I am not sure – I imagine fans of J-Lo are fans of bling as well, but would they stretch to a $70 USB key? Maybe, maybe not.
But undoubtedly it keeps the wheels in motion for more excuses for physical and digital world campaigns working together.
I have doubts whether this kind of thing would be able to stop the move from physical music purchases to downloads only however, which surely is the way it’s all going to go.
Howard
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