Apple today announced Complete My Album, a new iTunes service that allows customers to turn their individual tracks into a complete album at a reduced price by giving them a full 99 cent credit for every track they have previously purchased from that album.
“Music fans can now round out their music collections by upgrading their singles into complete albums with just one click, and get full credit for those songs they have previously purchased from iTunes,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, in the press release. “Complete My Album is a wonderful new way that iTunes helps customers grow and enjoy their music collections.”
“iTunes continues to revolutionize the digital music industry by offering music fans innovative ways to explore and enjoy new music,” said Thomas Hesse, president, Global Digital Business and US Sales, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, in the press release. “With Complete My Album, iTunes is giving music fans the best of both worlds—the ability to discover great new music by buying just the single and a credit toward the purchase of the complete album.”
Complete My Album offers customers up to 180 days after first purchasing individual songs from any qualifying album to purchase the rest of that album at a reduced price. When users buy any song on iTunes the corresponding album will immediately appear on their personalized Complete My Album page with the reduced price listed. For example, a user who’s already purchased three 99 cent singles and decides to buy the corresponding $9.99 album would be able to download the remaining songs to complete the album for just $7.02, without having to buy the singles again.
The iTunes Store features the world’s largest catalog with over four million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over two billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store.
More info at Apple’s iTunes Store here.
This is an attempt to keep the outmoded album concept around for a little while longer. It is highly-targeted marketing; just try it and see. All of your iTunes Store-purchased songs that don’t have the rest of the album in your library (ie. the stuff you didn’t want or like the first time around) are gathered together for you and you’re presented with ads to buy the rest of the albums. Our guess as to why they (the music labels and/or Apple) put the 180-day limit on this is simply another marketing tactic: time-limited offers create additional motivation for you to buy now. This is advertising masquerading as a feature.
Related article:
Apple plans iTunes credit for purchased singles if customers later buy album – March 26, 2007
WSJ: Music sales take sharp plunge – March 21, 2007
> Even with a time limit for future song purchases, it would be huge were they to grandfather in prior purchases going back to the inception of the iTMS.
It seems to me that when I look at my Complete My Album page, it does give me credit for purchases made since the first week the iTunes Store was in operation, not just stuff I bought during the last six months. Maybe Apple is giving everyone a one-time chance to complete EVERY album during the first six months.
This is a great innovation, long overdue…we have desparely needed this option…
IT IS NOT A SALES GIMMICK MDN
It’s the opposite…it is effectively a price cap…so that no matter what purchasing strategy you begin with, you will never need to spend more than the album price.
I’ll bet you Apple had to fight the music labels for years to bring this feature to us.