How to dramatically fail your product launch.
This is for you Rdio. You have plenty to learn from your competitor, Spotify; Let me tell you why!
Yesterday, Rdio launched their product in Italy, (where I live), and oddly missed a good opportunity to gain users at Spotify’s expense.
The wait went on for the last two years which became quite exhausting, until February; Spotify hired two media and marketing experts, (former Google employees), to effectively launch their product over the Bel Paese, and the positive impact was huge!
To be successful in Italy, especially in a market like this, effective advertising is essential, what better way to launch a new service than through a music event, hugely anticipated by the masses, airing on national public television? Let me tell you, nothing else comes close!
Spotify partnered with the Festival di Sanremo, the Italian Music Festival, which takes place every year in Sanremo and draws the attention of millions of Italians, media, TV, and everything in between; for a week you eat, drink, sleep and hear about the festival. All the big media houses in Italy covered the launch of Spotify and explained how it works; I do not know the numbers, but based on the thousands of reviews, I can easily say they succeeded in reaching the masses.
Back to Rdio, they launched in Italy yesterday, updating their app to Italian language and making it available in the Italian app stores. There was no press release or a “Tweet” to apprise us of this new development. I cannot think of a worst approach for a product launch in a very fertile market. Rdio could have gained tons of customers paying good money for their service, which is much better than Spotify’s , (it is even related to music catalog and apps usability), using a better advertising approach.
