MUSIC'S FUTURE (Hypebot) – Consumer expectations of "free" in exchange for their increasingly divided attention are beginning to shape many music marketing campaigns.
EMI's successful launch of Coldplay with a free track and free concerts is a recent example. Wired's Chris Anderson has also been writing about the rising power of free for more than a year and his forthcoming book may bring the concept into the mainstream.
But a new brief from TrendWatching.com
focuses a particularly sharp lense on the reasons behind as well as the potential power of "free" dubbing it "FREE LOVE".
…the ever-decreasing costs of producing physical goods, the post-scarcity dynamics of the online world (and the related avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C), the many C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, and an emerging recycling culture.
What is fueling FREE LOVE? According to the brief: