Chapter 9 marketing: Product and Price Video Title mtv urge and mtv university: mtv goes Everywhere learning objectives

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  Discuss the steps in developing a total product offer.
  
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  List the four parts of the marketing mix and identify how MTV approaches each.
  
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  Identify the ways in which MTV differentiates its product.
  
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  Explore how to compete against a market leader.
  

Michael Bloom, Vice President of Digital Music for MTV Networks

Stephen Friedman, General Manager MTV University
overview

In its 25 years on the air, MTV has established a reputation for delivering music and videos to a generation of young adults. But MTV missed the online music distribution model dominated by Apple’s iTunes. Now MTV is launching two endeavors to expand its offerings.

MTV Urge is an online music subscription service. Urge offers pay-per-song and subscription tiers and a platform that allows users to program their own music programs. (Urge is now part of the Rhapsody Music Service.)

MTVU is a cable channel designed by and for college students. The programming comes to students via broadband Internet, and lets users receive content whenever and wherever they want it. University creates a community of users, armed with the tools to create their own programming.

With new products such as Urge and University, MTV is seeking to reestablish itself as the music service of 15- to 25-year-old consumers. MTV’s marketing approach is to expand product offerings into any area that interests its customers. Product distribution is changing dramatically thanks to the Internet. In the digital world there is infinite shelf space, letting customers delve into the subgenres that interest them.
preparing students before the video

As students prepare to watch the video, ask them if they have had experience using MTV’s Urge (Now part of Rhapsody.) Do they like the service? How does it compare with iTunes? Most students are familiar with iTunes and have used it to download songs for their digital players. Ask them what services or options they desire that existing services don’t provide. When watching the video, they can evaluate whether MTV Urge will be able to compete against such a dominant competitor.

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  Identifying the target market and designing a marketing campaign to reach it.
  
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  Steps in developing a total product offer
  
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  The changing nature of distribution in the age of the Internet.
  
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  Competing in a market dominated by a market pioneer.
  

The MTV brand was started in the 1980s with the first MTV television channel. This generation of MTV viewers has matured and now listens to different music. MTV has introduced channels such as VH1 and VH1 Classic to keep existing customers whose tastes have changed. They also have developed brands such as MTV Urge and MTV University to appeal to the new generation of teens and young adults who don’t watch traditional broadcast television.

Traditional advertising media such as television, newspapers, and radio won’t reach the audience desired. MTV should concentrate on nontraditional approaches such as viral marketing, interactive online games, and event sponsorship.

The distribution of MTV’s products does not follow the standard product distribution channel. For one thing, the MTV product is an intangible, and there is nothing physical to “distribute.” Rather, the MTV product uses distribution channels such as the Internet, cell phones, iPods, satellite radio, etc.