M+E Daily
Starbucks Teams With Yahoo To Market Digital Content In-Store
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Starbucks and Yahoo are teaming up for a new spin on the marketing of digital content from brick-and-mortar locations.
“The Starbucks Digital Network,” accessible exclusively in 6,800 stores via the chain’s free Wi-Fi service, offers customers a range of free and premium content — including music and videos from Apple’s iTunes store, and e-books from the major publisher-backed Bookish Reading Club. iTunes offers paid downloads as well as a digital version of its ongoing “Pick of the Week” free-song promotion with Starbucks. The Bookish Reading Club, meanwhile, offers free access to e-books from publishers such as Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Group (USA) and Simon & Schuster.
Starbucks says it used HTML5 to design various versions of the Digital Network site to suit customers’ laptop, tablet, and smartphone screens.
Launch promotions on the network’s Entertainment channel include free iTunes access to two songs and a video from band Fistful of Mercy, as well as a clip from Paramount Vantage film “Waiting for Superman”; and an e-book excerpt from Hachette’s forthcoming Anita Shreve novel “Rescue.”
Starbucks is mum on the terms of its deals with content producers and distributors for positioning on the in-store site; The Christian Science Monitor reports that the chain earns a percentage of in-store content sales.
Suffice to say, entertainment retail at the coffee purveyor has come a long way since the days of the “Hear Music” coffeehouse, even as stores continue to sell the odd CD from their counters.
