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Microsoft's Plans for Winning Over Apple iPod Music Lovers with Zune

Authored by Jay Baage on January 8, 2007 - 4:36am.
Richard Winn, Manager of Artist Development, Microsoft ZuneAn exclusive interview with Richard Winn, Manager of Artist Development, Microsoft Zune. Microsoft is no doubt faced with challenges in making its Zune music player a success. One essential requirement is to achieve credibility with music lovers. Richard Winn, Manager of Artist Development for Zune, shares with Digital Media Wire a look into how indie music and close relationships with upcoming artists is key to Zune’s on-going content strategy.

One of the hardest things in the digital music space is knowing how to guide consumers to, as well as provide the best overall music experience. Microsoft has hired Richard Winn, Manager of Artist Relations for Zune, as a key person in putting the pieces together to deliver that music experience for the Zune music player. Winn has worked on many records throughout his career in the music industry, and claims his favorite gig to be Bauhaus opening for Magazine in 1981 at Northampton Town Hall. His favorite local group, Band of Horses, is also featured as a preload on the Zune player.

“We are trying to establish that Zune is not just a player, but a brand that has an editorial voice of its own. For example, we are getting our hands dirty at a club level. We have also sponsored three tours since the beginning of October – 80 to 90 shows so far. All with upcoming artists like Mexican Institute of Sound,” says Richard Winn.

“We saw establishing credibility with the music community from the beginning as very important. Forget the approach of doing research on our key audience of 18-28 year-olds and who are the biggest artists for that group. We don’t want to Zune to be seen as a mainstream device, but an ‘everything’ device. We want to appeal to the top 40 audience, but not at the cost of smaller and upcoming artists”, adds Winn.

The preloaded content on the device as well as the featured content on Zune.net is an example of Zune’s integrated content strategy. It features, in my opinion, an interesting and well thought-out mix of indie and alternative music, as well as cool art on Zune-Arts.net. However, Zune’s original editorial voice has not been marketed broadly yet. Perhaps because it is hard to nail down. The current tagline in the advertisement “Welcome to the Social” has been ridiculed by bloggers as cryptic and worse –the Zune’s limited WiFi capacity has been highly discussed, rather than the interesting music experience that Richard Winn and his team are working on.

Winn openly acknowledges that the Zune team is aware of the challenges it is facing and that Microsoft is fighting an uphill battle in the music market, but points out that the goal that Microsoft has set for the Zune team is not first hand to catch up with Apple’s iPod, as the cool device of choice for the cool kids, but to slowly build credibility with the musicians and provide a viable hub for music lovers. This strategy will, according to Winn, soon enough enable Microsoft to finally catch a fair share of the lucrative digital music market.

Winn realistically, yet enthusiastically, confirms Zune's short-term objective with this succinct comment: “Our goal right now is to be in a solid second place.”

Joakim Baage

Related Links:
Richard Winn's Bio
Zune Review: Is There Anybody Out There?
Zune vs iPod - The Story in the Data
Microsoft Expects to Sell 1 Million Zune Players by June
Buzz Watch: Microsoft Launches a Full Scale Attack on Apple
Steve Jobs Disses Microsoft’s Zune
http://www.zune.net
https://www.zune-arts.net
tags: Music | iPod | Apple | Microsoft | Commerce | iTunes | Interviews | Zune |



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