Napster's ad: Forget fashion, music's a value play

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featured a series of equations comparing the value of its offer to the $1 per song downloads from Apple, got mixed reviews.

In a blog posting on Monday, Forrester Research advertising analyst Jim Nail gave his "ad champion" award to Napster's spot.

"Simple. Clear. Compelling," Nail wrote. "This ad won't make the Advertising Hall of Fame, but it will generate a lot of Napster 30-day trials tomorrow."

The company concurred, saying its traffic spiked after the ad, and it gave away 1,000 bundles of subscriptions plus MP3 players in just minutes.

Not all viewers agreed, however. Blogger Daniel Fienberg, reviewing the advertisements on Zap2It.com, called the Napster ad "both needlessly complicated and just plain silly."

Only time will tell whether Napster's math-wonk advertising will ultimately undermine Apple's fashionista zeitgeist. For now, Wall Street's reaction is the only one with immediate impact, and the traders proved to be harsh critics.

Napster's share prices fell nearly 10 percent Monday, following a quick rise last week after news of the advertisements broke.

"We knew (the ad) would be polarizing," Napster CEO Chris Gorog said in a statement. "Some people loved it. Some people hated it. But everybody's talking about it. That's what we wanted."

Windows Copy-Protected Capabilities?

If one subscribes to Napster, they probably can't even burn their songs to CD, can they? or that would defeat the purpose of rented music. I give Napster 2 thumbs down. Of course, I may be a bit partial. I'm an avid iPod, iTunes, and future PowerBook user.

[EarthToApple]

RipOff

You can not burn the music, so you never own it it is just another way to give you a monthly payment, iTunes all the way. Napster will fail,

[iKenny]

One way

Napster isn't bad, it's just a very different approach from iTunes.
I personally would not like the service. What Napster failed to
point out in the ad is that the songs you downloaded vanish
once you stop paying $15/month, and that the songs can't be
burned to CD without paying extra. I listen to songs way longer
than a month, so to me paying 99¢ and having the song forever
is a better deal than $15 for all I want, because the song isn't
really mine and is tied to my monthly fee. Some people,
however, may find a service like this compelling.

[pankers--2008]

Vanishing act for an encore....

Oh yeah, Napster forgot to tell you that you just storage these leased songs forever on you mp3 player or PC HDD. If you don't reconnect to the internet, then these leased songs *expire*.

Again you lose if you quit.

[pankers--2008]

Napster Irony

It's funny math Napster 2 calculates:
Napster 1 download millions of *free* mp3s on to millions of PC's which in turn filled a large share of flash and HD mp3 players, not only iPods but Zens, Rios and iRivers.

Now you say they don't have the music already?

Really, how many iPod and Zen owners *need* to spend $10,000 to fill 60 gigs?

Napster isn't even campatible with an iPOD???

Okay, not a huge Apple fan here, but get real. I was considering
using this new Napster service but find out I can't even use it
with one of the new 512MB iPod Shuffles (the new low cost iPod
thingy $99). So, I have to get some other crappy flash player, or
spend big bucks on a RIO or one of the other hard drive models
that are somewhere in the $199 - $299 range. Not to mention,
if I cancel my Napster account all my music goes with it??? What
about my own CD's that I already own... come to think of it, they
were saying that the iTunes services would cost $10,000. What
if I only want to use the iTune software for managing my current
collection of 600+ CD's. That';s free right? So I still don't see
the benefit of the new Napster service over my own CD
collection, or using one of the new cheap iPod's with the iTunes
software (which is FREE and actaully damn good). There library
of music is pretty weak at Napster too. I have not seen all the
stuff at the iTunes store yet, but the Napster stuff seems to be
fairly limited. I can't imagine them having the cloat to sign up as
many of the major lables like the iTune store has already done.

What so the rest of you think about this Napter service. I think it
sounds good on the surface, but seems to be just another music
service trying to seduce us all to them with promises.

[notagumshoe]

Napster=Limits

Windows only, WMA & MP3 compression only (both poor in
compression to AAC not to mention old), two toy music players?
(or is it up to three now), and of course the its not your license
music policy. Napsters real add campaign Please pay a monthly
fee for low quality audio and limitations. We have to feed our
children and cant think up good ideas on our own. Thank you
Netflix and iTunes for creating two great products that we can
imitate and mutilate to try and make money.
At least with an iTunes there isnt a constant worry that you
wont get your moneys worth out of your purchase every
month. If you use the Napsters new service you lose money just
for not listening to music.