French-based music streaming service Deezer has gone to extra lengths lately to ensure it’s seen more than just a digital platform to listen to music.
Earlier this year they undertook a major upgrade to its API services to include a rewards scheme to its service its 3 million paid subscribers across 182 countries worldwide. More recently, they partnered with Intellitix to make Splendour In The Grass the first Aussie music festival to use electronic RFID wristbands to deliver a ‘post festival’ experience in curated playlists based on tracking punters’ movements at the three day Byron Bay-based music festival.
Now, Billboard reports that Deezer are offering free streaming subscriptions as rewards to punters who attend concerts and music events through a new partnership with location ‘check in’ service Foursquare.
“This is Foursquare’s biggest perk for music lovers all over the world,” enthuses the Deezer blog post announcing the partnership; “whether you jam to hip-hop, classical, or indie rock, you can access the rewards by checking in at concerts at over 15,000 music venues in 15 countries.” “This is Foursquare’s biggest perk for music lovers all over the world, whether you jam to hip-hop, classical, or indie rock…” – Deezer
For the uninitiated, Foursquare is a social media tool that offers virtual rewards to users who share their location by ‘checking in’ (a la Facebook) at venues and locations. The new partnership with Deezer works simply enough, turning those intangible badges and pins into a tangible award, a 3-month Deezer Premium+ subscription to the services 25 million strong song library.
For the chance to win one of the subscriptions, Foursquare users simply ‘like’ Deezer through the app and then must check in to seven or more concerts or gigs, from Foursquare’s growing list of 15,000 concert venues, to potentially win one of the Premium+ subscriptions.
The new rewards scheme is available in 15 of the 182 countries that Deezer operates in, with Australian and New Zealand users joining France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil the Netherlands, Mexico, Ireland, Indonesia, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg in reaping the benefits of the newly forged partnership.
Foursquare will no doubt benefit from the Deezer boost, with an April report from Forbes on the app’s growth noting that Foursquare’s API was receiving 75 million hits on an average day, but the service relies on its users creating listings for new locations and venues to ‘check in’ to. Noting that the number of new venue listings had dwindled in North America – it’s main market – but other countries, like Brazil and Turkey, were ‘exploding’.
The promotion is also obviously meant to draw more subscribers to Deezer in its ongoing bid to topple the likes of Spotify and Pandora in the overcrowded music streaming market, but targeting music fans who spend lots of time attending concerts goes hand-in-hand with encouraging Deezer users to attend more live music – albeit Foursquare junkies (who may spend more time on their smartphones tweeting, filming, and snapping Instagrams at concerts than enjoying the show, but we digress).
Marketing incentives aside, it’s an interesting development in the ongoing streaming music service landscape; a move that follows Apple’s much delayed entry into the market with iTunes radio, trailing behind the recent launch of Google Music All Access, Rdio jumping into the Vdio arena, Spotify celebrating one year in Australia, and Pandora – who recently popped the cork on reaching 200 million subscribers but came under fire from Pink Floyd in a scathing open letter criticising the internet radio service’s low royalty payouts to musicians.
