To pay or not to pay? That is the question that Radiohead fans will be asking themselves come October 10th since for their forthcoming album In Rainbows, Radiohead has decided to let each customer decide how much to pay for the album, (including not paying anything) using the slogan "It's Up To You." The new album will only be available for download from their website at first (www.inrainbows.com), though a special edition CD/vinyl box set is set to be released on December 3rd. However, the special edition set is far from being free, costing approximately $80.
I was a bit skeptical of this at first, so I decided to try it out for myself. At first, I had a bit of trouble getting to the site (which I later found out was because of heavy traffic to the site) but I was eventually able to get to the checkout portion of the site. Sure enough, where a price would normally be listed, there were just two blank boxes, allowing me to charge myself whatever I wanted. Since my net worth at the moment is in the negatives, I decided to go for the free option and listed my price as $0.00. After briefly registering with the site, I finally arrived at my order confirmation page, which does indeed list my order total as $0.00.
Now I imagine that some of you might be scorning me right now for not even offering up a dollar for the album, and actually, I agree with you. However, I did this for two reasons. First, I wanted to see if it was actually true (who isn't skeptical of something claiming to be free), and second, before I offer up anything, I want to hear it. If I like it, I'll go back and "buy" it again, paying as much as I think it is worth. If I don't like it, then I'll probably end up deleting it.
As I began to think about this marketing tactic more in depth, I realized just how smart of a strategy it is. Take myself for example. While I have heard of Radiohead before and even have few of their songs in my iTunes library, I would have never even thought about, or even known about, picking up this new album. Even though it was free, if it turns out I like it, I will probably be giving them a few bucks for it, and I might even be inclined to purchase some of their past albums. By using this unique marketing strategy, Radiohead is getting tons of free advertising from the media, and is gaining the attention of a huge number of potential customers for the future.
The other ingenious aspect of this marketing strategy is its timing. Radiohead just announced the release date and pricing details for In Rainbows on October 1st, meaning that there are only nine days before the album is released. This short notice serves two notable purposes. First, it prevents tracks from being leaked on the web, especially since it is only able to be downloaded. Second, it allows the news coverage of the unique pricing model to become the advertising for the album, saving them thousands in advertising dollars.
So why aren’t more artists using this strategy? Well the biggest reason is that Radiohead didn’t use a record label for this album. In a day and age where the top four record labels control about 70% of the world music market, this is almost unheard of. Record labels are responsible for producing, manufacturing, distributing and promoting albums, so without one, a new album could be dead before it even hits the street. Most bands, especially those who are relatively unknown, are not willing to risk launching an album without a record label.
While the success or failure of this album will indeed have a large impact on Radiohead, I think that the success or failure of this pricing model will have an even greater impact on other musicians and the record labels. If they can show that this model was successful, more musicians will put pressure on the record labels to incorporate it into their next album release. So, if you really want the price of more albums to be “Up to You,” I recommend going and buying this album, no matter what you decide the price should be.
As Adam Frucci from the tech site Gizmodo.com so eloquently wrote in his story on this new strategy, "Yes, that sound you just heard was the music industry collectively crapping its pants."
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