PIAS PACTS WITH ITUNES
UP-SELLING - whereby a salesman attempts to have the consumer purchase more expensive items, upgrades, or other add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale. Up-selling usually involves marketing more profitable services or products, but up-selling can also be simply exposing the customer to other options he or she may not have considered previously. (Wikipedia)
Buried in a press release that European distributor PIAS finalized a deal to deliver 44,000
tracks to be sold in DRM free AAC on iTunes was this:
"This new global agreement with iTunes Plus will also see [PIAS] Digital offering a range of new ‘added value’ digital services as part of the deal, including bundling incentives with Ticketmaster and the ability to buy ringtone versions of the repertoire sold via iTunes."
COMMENTARY: We've seen select Tickmaster tie-ins before and heard hints of ringtones. But never before have we seen it as part of a deal with iTunes. Of course, with a few new lines of code other retailers could match iTunes' moves and Amazon could add books, DVD's, t-shirts and more using existing infrastructure.
But if they are first out of the gate, score one more for Apple.
