Rdio partners with AEG to provide AXS ticket buyers personalized artist suggestions and concert notifications.
Through a new partnership between Rdio and AEG, all AXS ticket buyers are now able to opt into a free Rdio Unlimited 30-day trial or a free Rdio account. This cross-promotional cycle will allow Rdio to recommend artists based on the live show the user bought a ticket to, while also notifying them of any upcoming concerts in their area by that artist.
“A lot of people discover their music likes from the Rdio service,” said Blaine LeGere, senior vice president, Ticketing, with AXS. “So as they’re discovering what artists are similar to artists they’ve voluntarily liked, Rdio will come back with recommendations that are like that artist. As that is being curated for the consumer, there’s an obvious link to what if there’s a live show for that artist? Rdio is hoping to push people back toward the live experience as we’re recommending to people that they work with Rdio on the listening experience.”
Conversations about the partnership began about six months ago. Once a deal was structured, both teams began working on the integration of Rdio into the ticketing flow. Integrated billing with AXS.com will allow for easy extension of Rdio Unlimited beyond the free trial for those who choose to continue for $9.99 a month.
“On the one hand, we’re kind of joint marketing to our user base,” said Marc Ruxin, COO of Rdio. “On the other, we’re adding a content layer. To the customer it was just a transactional thing, and now we can say, hey you just bought a ticket, but here’s a bunch of other information so you can play this artist’s station, and you can have a free trial of our entire catalogue with an Rdio subscription.”
LeGere said the partnership allows each company to provide something the other needed.
“You look at it and it’s like, wow these two things make sense,” said LeGere. “We’re not competitors at all. We’re complementary. It’s just about getting more people to experience music, whether that be through the Rdio app or through going to concerts and buying their tickets through AXS.”
With a free Rdio account, users gain access to over 35 million songs accessible in 85 countries. Algorithmic stations create playlists based on a selected artist, song or genre. Personalized stations are created based off what music and artists you choose to listen to. And program stations are special playlists like “Chill Out Music,” “Valentine’s Day” or “Breakup Music.” From those self-selected genre specifications, Rdio is then able to target push notifications and emails to the users, promoting like artists and upcoming live shows.
“Our original bias was that a lot of the marketing that we’re going to do is going to be to people who we already know love music, and the people who are overindexed on loving music are the people that are actually going out to see live music,” said Ruxin. “Everyone loves music, but the people who are actually willing to buy the ticket and get to a show and really lean in to a band in particular are the highest part of the fan index for us.”
In addition to those services, an Rdio Unlimited subscription allows for offline consumption, unlimited ad-free listening and downloadable content beyond the free streaming. Rdio offers free 30-day trials only through special offers like this one. But even with a free Rdio account, they are still able to do the same targeting involved with the paid account.
“We’re really focused on people that love music,” said Ruxin. “All the services are pretty similar, but the way we developed ours was with the total music nerd in mind. For us, it’s how can we add value back to people when we already know something about their musical tastes?”
Though it is the first partnership between a major live event company and a leading music streaming service, Rdio has partnered with companies in the past in an effort to allow Rdio listening on any device, in addition to a computer or through the app. At the end of 2014, Rdio partnered with Roku, a television streaming device, to offer a similar free trial deal and allow Roku users to play music on their TVs through an Rdio account. It’s also easily embedded into Chromecast, another media streaming device, and is built into Tesla autos in Europe as a free service.
Interviewed for this story: Blaine LeGere, (888) 929-7849; Marc Ruxin, (415) 603-1197