During my recent trip to the states I came across another iTunes & Starbucks marketing initiative while ordering a coffee. Starbucks offers its customers at its 7.000 coffee shops within the US iTunes vouchers called: “Pick of the week”. The voucher offers a free song/music video at the iTunes store. Each Tuesday, a specific song is stocked, which is redeemable within 60 days. The artists (e.g. Carly Simon, Duffy, Counting Crows, Adele, Sia, Hilary McRae) are “hand-picked” by the Starbucks Entertainment team and iTunes entertainment.

The co-operation b/w Starbucks and iTunes began in October 2006. In 2007 they launched the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at select Starbucks locations (also check out our article “Starbucks Coffee meets Apple iTunes”).

The benefits of the co-operation are manifold:
1) Starbucks customers get a free song/video on the iTunes Store and a music recommendation.
2) Starbucks can increase “shop floor traffic” by giving customer an incentive to visit their coffee shops and boosts sales.
3) iTunes activates users, luring them with a free download offer to the iTunes store. This will not only activate existing iTunes customers but result in many new registrations.

Moreover, there is a fourth party benefiting from this initiative. The artists/labels, as awareness of the artist will be increased on a large scale.

For further information on this collaboration check out press release at:

http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=857