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McDonald's Denies Deal With iTunes
fdiv_bug writes "Turns out, according to a press release, that the iTunes Music Store/McDonald's deal mentioned earlier today was only a rumor. A swing and a miss for the New York Post." It sounded pretty plausible, even if the cost was roughly 50% more than McDonald's usual yearly advertising expenditures.
Shucks!
I had just got done discussing this with a friend at class tonight too. After I explained it to him - yeah, we both kinda looked at each other and went REALLY?. A billion songs for a billion dollars? - Not even Mc Donald's is stupid enough to pay for that many songs - over half of which wouldn't even get redeemed...
Pity though really - this is phenomenal advertising for i-Tunes & a great business proposition for McDonald's - they should really look into it - but maybe not at a billion songs or so (that's a lot of music!)
I think everyone would have to wonder if McDonalds just pulled this stunt to get some free publicity. 1. Pretend you're being a nice company and deal out free music 2. Deny it, and save yourself the money. 3. Create media attention to suck in everyone 4. ??? 5. Profit!
READY.
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Billion-dollar deals don't just poof out of thin air, there probably is something behind this. All they said is that there is no agreement right now, if they had no plans, they would probably say more than that. It does strike me as a bit odd, however, that they would buy these songs at-cost, and give them away as a marketing campaign. But Pepsi did it so maybe its not so far-fetched.
One more thing...McDonalds "continues to aggressively pursue bold new initiatives in the areas of music, sports, fashion and entertainment..."
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but shouldn't McDonalds concentrate on making decent food before they get carried away with music and fashion? Maybe if they scrapped the wafer-thin burgers more people would go there.
The incremental cost to give away the songs is negligible.. it's digital.
IT works for both companies: Think of the extra exposure it would give itunes.... McDonalds is HUGE.
If MCDonalds does it... everyone on earth will hear about Itunes, and inquire as to what it is, etc.
Hey, I don't know where you heard about McDonalds dealin in iTunes, but here - today - in Raleigh, NC, McDonalds opened a McCafe, an alternative to Starbucks for those who want fancy coffees, pastries, and deli sandwiches. Oh, and the whole place is wifi-enabled for free to internet surfing or just small computer errands.
... there's gotta be a volume discount in the billions
McDonald's would have to negiotiate that with the labels directly, most likely. I'm sure Apple would be happy to break even on the deal, just for the promotion and getting people accustomed to building their music libraries in iTunes. However, according to most industry estimations Apple pays ~$0.70 US to the appropriate record label (for major label content) for each sale, so any volume discount they give would have to be at or around that price. The record labels would be wise, in my opinion, to sell these tracks to McDonald's / Apple for a reduced rate, say $0.40 US. While this lowers margins for everyone involved, it is great marketing for McDonald's, Apple, and those pesky labels. I look forward to this deal working out, it would be even bigger than the Pepsi deal for educating the public on the value of legal digital music.
(Score:-1, Wrong)