News

Music Discovery - world's leading? Mobile away!

What on earth is "the world's leading mobile music discovery provider"? I can tell you!

It is in fact Shazam (or so the publicity machine insists) and if you've ever heard of it, you'll know at once what it is: a cute trick where you let your mobile phone listen to music playing, and a robot tells you what the song is. Yes, it really works!

Today's announcement of a Shazam deal with Vodafone Germany makes it clear that this is clever stuff, and award-winning clever stuff, too. To quote the release: 

The Shazam iD Chart, generated by the company’s mobile music recognition service, is constantly referenced by the music industry as a true indicator of market interest in pre-release material and a monitor of the hit potential of a track or artist.

Very handy.

 You have to recognise the fact that this is a unique idea. On the Shazam web site, there's a quote from BuzzFeed saying:

"How many times have you been in the Gap and wondered, 'What's that awesome song they're playing in here?' Wonder no more! With the magic of Shazam, you'll never be left out of the game again."

And with the obvious caveat (the answer is "hardly ever" and "never" but someone obviously does spend their life listening to store music) that sums it up neatly.  But that doesn't mean you can turn it into a one-product market category by embedding the idea in a meaningless phrase.

Unless, of course, you're a press release writer. It is as if publicity companies were conspiring to make their messages as impenetrable as possible. And surely, everybody in the industry (PR, that is) must know that the phrase "world's leading" is an unavoidable invitation to any journalist to "run away!"?

Apparently, not...