technology

Starbucks gets in tune with clients

January 19, 2016

Starbucks has launched a new digital music experience with leading streaming music service Spotify. – AFP/Relaxnews pic, January 19, 2016.A new partnership with Spotify will allow visitors to any US branch of the coffee shop chain to discover and save the music they hear in store while waiting for a latte.

Described as a "first-of-its-kind" music experience, all that consumers will need to identify the tracks they hear at their local Starbucks and to save them to a playlist is the Starbucks mobile app and access to Spotify, where the playlists will be curated.

"Music has played a pivotal role in our stores for over forty years and we have been at the forefront of how to integrate it into a retail environment," said Howard Schultz, chairman and ceo of Starbucks.

"Today is the next era in that experience. We are merging the physical and digital, providing new access points for Spotify as they continue to grow globally, placing more control into our customers' hands and giving artists the world's largest stage for them to share their talent."

The new service is also interactive. Users will be able to influence the music being played in the 7,500 participating stores in the US by marking favourite tracks that will be integrated into future playlists.

People will also be able to trawl through lists of all the music played in branches of Starbucks over the past two decades.

Starbucks and Spotify also envisage the service as a way of promoting up and coming artists and potentially providing them a captive initial audience. The Starbucks mobile app currently has 10 million active users in the US.

"Together with Starbucks, we're creating a unique new digital music experience that offers Starbucks customers and Spotify users the ability to discover even more music at Starbucks and enjoy that same music and more on Spotify, whenever they want and wherever they are," said Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify. – AFP/Relaxnews, January 19, 2016.