Spotify’s US Launch: A Party in the Making

Last Friday, November 26, 2010, a big party was arranged in Sodermalm, Stockholm. As evident as it is from the title of this post, the entity behind the event couldn’t be other than Spotify AB, the buzzed streaming music service. Being lucky enough to form part of the guests, I took pleasure in going there and have the opportunity to explore the motivations behind this party. Apparently, Spotify notified that the party was supported by their close friends. These “so-called” friends were no other than big names such as Telia, Volkswagen, Phillips, Playstation, Xante and Carlsberg. Demographics of the guests comprised people of a variety of ages. The mix Spotify created in getting their guests together was incredible. Starting all the way from youth and extending up to people who live in their “MIDDLE” ages were present. They were no ordinary people! Rather, majority of them were big shots in the corporate world. I came across certain people who represented giant corporations like the Microsoft. I am certain there were plenty of representatives from other giants as well.

Spotify Ready To Hit the US? 

The organizers, Spotify AB, considered their guests to be extremely fortunate to be entertained with mini concerts. Entertainment in these concerts was provided by Shout Out Loud, Me and My Army, Oskar Linnros, Hoffmaestro and DJ Tony Zoulias. Heavy metal and rock music comprised the welcoming portion on the agenda. This was followed up by the usual music which one may virtually everywhere.

However, what motivated me to write about this party is the proximate launch of Spotify in the US. As they are getting closer to this feat, can it be considered that arranging such a party that surrounds such high profile personalities is a move on their marketing schedule? Well, strategically thinking, it can potentially be a marketing move, and a smart one! The odds are that people who attended the party are likely to carry out word-of-mouth marketing of the Spotify brand using the party as an excuse, which apparently, most people do not realize. If this is what Spotify wanted, they did one hell of a job executing it. As mentioned earlier, the guests incorporate elements of youth as well. Youth can potentially be a good source to create suspense and generate a buzz or potential conspiracies since they tend to talk a lot and establish new opinions. Having said this, it still remains very much under-cover until the actual story makes the headlines. As I write this, I realize I am carrying out marketing for Spotify brand, only unconsciously!

The “Taxi 020” Social Media Urge …… Remains Urged!

The follow-up meeting in the Taxi 020 premises promised progress and undiluted enthusiasm. Company executives were already excited and recognized the potential of social media marketing if executed in a flawless manner. Though there are a number of decisions that yet remain to be undertaken, all entities involved are eager to get some sort of a campaign underway. Whatever decisions are made in the future in regards to online marketing for “Taxi 020”, they have to be built on the previous sessions we have had. Some of the actors who were present in the previous gathering remained absent. However, it did not distress the passion to carry out teamwork. Every person was really up to the task and tried to contribute in a positive way. A significant feature of the gathering was the way in which we utilized time. I felt the notion of time management was handled with effective measures. It can primarily be owed to the fact that, under the circumstances, everyone knew their roles pretty well. People knew they had to deliver and they had to make things happen. Commenting on each other’s insights was prominent, useful and fruitful. It allowed us to be more efficient and clarified our actions even more as we are only a few weeks away from executing what we have in mind.

Anne, an executive from an advertising agency based in central Stockholm and also a member of the team I partake in for this project, had performed her role pretty well. I noticed she was more focused on the subsequent steps the team should undertake. However, the element of uncertainty was a hindrance that eluded her vision a little. That was where analysis of insights coupled with appreciation and some critique on each other’s views made way to the forefront. This deepened our visions and illuminated thoughts and perceptions and registered them to a new level. Very accommodating!

Building on the first team meeting, I had to play my role and put together the very basis of social media, identification of best practices associated with it that can be implemented within the highly networked internet that we know today. I managed to convey certain valuable insights which I thought hindered us from the very first meeting. As I delivered the talk to the executives of Taxi 020 and Anne, the nod of the heads from them motivated me further. I engaged elements of humor in my presentation which eventually made the audience giggle. However, the most important aspect was that we had made precious inroads into the project. We had discussed how to boost the brand and what courses of action were central while we use social media strategies. I am sure everyone learned that to be able to utilize social media effectively, it has to be done in close connection with the audience we try to target. An interesting aspect that was unleashed was that using social media strategies in the online world had to be based on interaction with the consumer, gaining feedback from their experiences, their suggestions regarding a particular service and communication with them in real-time or nearly real-time are crucial to success in the online arena. This is merely a start. Once in possession of concrete social media strategies, one has to be extremely speedy and has to encompass symptoms that have to be derived from OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Online marketing nowadays requires one to be dynamic, efficient, deliver quality content and interact with the consumers. A company that is a newbie and is about to fall within this sphere may be prone to undesired outcomes. However, this does not signify at any instance that success is a milestone that remains in a lone corner. Even if failure results as the first step in our journey, I believe success is eventually enjoyed and efforts are rewarded. It also forms the very roots of entrepreneurship. One has to consider the possibility of disdain while high hopes are to remain paramount in a new venture. I believe this is the way to go and I am certain whatever efforts, decisions and tasks we carry out, we will end up seeing green and healthy fields that bear resemblance to the gardens of Eden.

I may not have unearthed every single aspect as to what strategy we are moving forward with. I consider it would be harsh for the project and entities involved. I assume it would be implausible and unethical to give too much away. At the same time, as I reflect of this claim, I feel my act is full of injustice and betrayal towards social media. The essence of social media is to share. Unfortunately, I am unable to do that at the moment. This leads me to reflect on another very famous statement which says “Everything is fair in love and war”. Using this statement as a lame excuse, I feel obliged to extend this statement to something along the lines of “Everything is fair in love, war and ONLINE MARKETING!” I draw heart from the fact that at least a few people would agree with me at this point …

Web 2.0 on the Move

My recent return to “Winter Wonderland” has been marked with a number of interesting episodes already. I would love to express each and every single experience. However, right now I shall be discussing something very interesting which also relates to my curriculum. It has been two weeks that I landed in Stockholm after a great summer vacation and as I arrive, I have been obscured by meetings, events and projects. One of the projects I am working on has been in close connection with a Swedish consumer company namely “Taxi 020”. The aspiration here was to promote the company’s brand using social media or Web 2.0, for that matter. It has been widely accepted that social media allows maneuvering and exercising strategies that are both time effective and cost effective. The company executives believe that it is a good line of action to apply these practices in order to promote the brand of the company and build long term relationships with its customers.

Merely two weeks, attending a meeting with the Marketing Manager of Taxi 020, I gained insights about the company, its evolution, the manner it has approached marketing and what they are planning to do in the future. I understood that one of the strategies the company executed about 5 years ago was to smear yellow all over their cars in order to catch the eye-balls of the consumer. The strategy was successful as it exhibited features of the differentiation strategy that we regularly speak about at school. The company decided to increase the number of yellow cars to approximately 1000 in Stockholm. They also operate in other cities of Sweden as well such as in Malmo or Gothenburg. The number of cars in cities other than Stockholm is very small speaking strictly on a relative account. However, to the flipside of the company, the strategy fell short of establishing a long term relationship with the consumer as it would have wanted. This was attributed to several incidents that took place whose consequences have been very upsetting.

Since the taxi business is a very conservative business, it is essential that the product/service that is offered to the consumer is easy to handle in addition to deliver customer satisfaction, which is a key success factor for long term sustenance. At the moment in Stockholm, there are three major taxi services with “Taxi Stockholm” in the limelight. Taxi 020, on the other hand, had in mind that to be able to compete head-to-head with Taxi Stockholm, pricing was one aspect that could alter the consumers’ consent and attract them towards them. Consequently, Taxi 020 exercised the segmentation tactic quite effectively. The company decided that it would serve three categories of customers; the general public, companies and several government parties. It worked absolutely immaculately until the global economic recession came into the act. The consequences were massive for Taxi 020. The strategy started to falter briskly. However, there was one sector that not only sustained its state but instead the volume of consumers increased which was quite fascinating for the company. This sector was the public sector. It all owed to the famous but dreadful winter that hit Sweden last year. The bad winter resulted in a good season for the cab company.

A number of years ago, the company had also deployed other marketing communication tactics such as placement of ads in local newspapers. Sadly, the return was rather slim as taxi is a service that is only used when it is needed. A consumer never actually know when he may need a cab and why he may need it, suggested the Taxi 020 Marketing Manager, Frederick Scholander. Frederick asserted that one of the critical aspects that would attract the consumer to utilize this service is to know the telephone number of the company. Therefore, the telephone number should be so easy to communicate which, in turn, allows the consumer recall it on an immediate basis. This has been one area which the company has been trying to address for the last couple of years. Moreover, the company has also been involved in certain other endeavors such as the introduction of a special price for “Girls” that allowed its practice for a certain period of the day. The strategy started to work fine until government and law-enforcement agencies took the issue in their hands and ascribed the act to discrimination resulting in massive repercussions for the company. It soon became a big concern as the word was spreading at the pace of a bullet. More people used to speak about it habitually. Negative word-of-mouth marketing for Taxi 020!

As the company struggled to attain excellence and create a brand that is not only widely accepted but also assisted them to build a competitive advantage, the executives at the company acquired the support of Robin Teigland, Associate Professor at Stockholm School of Economics. Robin has always been very energetic and keen to try new things. She suggested that the company could potentially adopt social media as a channel to promote the brand as the channel is cost effective and gets the target audience spot on. Frederick was intrigued somewhat. He decided to go ahead with the venture and has assumed the essence of social media aggressively with sincere efforts and is hopeful it will pay off. I am also working on the project playing my role as a student to facilitate the marketing process. The campaign is well-underway and all the entities involved are willful that whatever endeavors we deliver result fruitful. This reinforces my belief that Web 2.0 is not only scoring big but it will be a key factor that will allow us to achieve the SOLO objective we pursue with so much perseverance.

ORACLE – The Information Company

It has been nearly a month now that I attended the Oracle conference in Kista, Stockholm. Finally, I have defied time allowing myself to put into words the experience I underwent during my presence at Oracle. The conference was interesting and fruitful as it allowed me to gain knowledge about which line of action Oracle has adapted to promote their business and products in the future. Their philosophy is simple and revolves around three criteria to recruit new customers and maintaining existing customer relationships. Their approach is simplistic, yet profound and insightful. These criteria are competitiveness, efficiency and simplification with respect to other market actors. Elaborating a little more on each of these three attributes, I found out they are keen on laying the “Best” foundation in the form of competitiveness, "Minimization" of operating costs by providing efficient solutions and providing "Standardization" and consolidation via simplification. The company differentiates itself by using off-the-shelf functionality allowing custom development of differentiating functions, thereby allowing richer options to customers. Their product, the Application Server, focuses on achieving best practices using the existing Java framework. The Application Server was portrayed to be prone towards performance, reliability, scalability, flexibility and manageability. The promoters of the products referred to this as Clustering Integration Management. The product is invaluable for its acquirers as it supports uprising architectures such as cloud computing. People at Oracle think that it is critical to achieve compatibility of existing product with proposed future paradigms. Apparently, cloud computing is useful for a firm as it enables pooling of resources and their sharing as well. This enables more capabilities to its user-base which is complemented with automation. It is a fast deployment architecture that eventually leads to achieve Operational Efficiency and High Performance. This architecture does this by eliminating big programs like huge operating systems and bringing in smaller apps which is where the idea of Operational Efficiency belongs. I learned the mode the apps adopt to realize this. These apps are available in high quantity. Being relatively smaller in size, deployment becomes easier as application deployment time is zeroed down. Putting this altogether, cloud computing results even more beneficial as the cloud architecture can exist at different levels.

Coming back to the Oracle product, people at Oracle have developed the product in a way that complements existing capabilities that can be found in similar products. This feature is what they believe sets them apart as it allows leveraging and reusing existing tools. Not only this, it also exhibits an identical programming paradigm. The product has been tested for deployment at enterprise level for which a number of enterprise development strategies have been proposed. These strategies are fault tolerant and enable high speed data intensive computing, which, in turn, parallelizes tasks. This leads to both time-saving and cost-saving.

It seems Oracle has learned a lot more since they acquired Sun Microsystems. They have a clear vision as to how they will move forward with a clear strategy. Their post-Sun strategy is designated towards productivity with choice which allows its customer base to undertake more freedom. From a personal point of view, I believe companies that fall within the technological territory have started to envision futuristic methods and are keen on implementing them by closely interacting with their core customers. The technological territory is full of rivalry. With one eye placed into the future, it is likely firms are going to combine forces rather than going head-to-head to achieve excellence.