Amazon is competing with Spotify in an attempt to gain fans of The Beatles as Prime members through a playlist on its mobile application, alongside a series of social media posts.

Streaming music giant Spotify is ramping up awareness for the addition of The Beatles’ music to its database through Snapchat filters, push notifications and other forms of advertising. Amazon is hoping to challenge Spotify with a 50-song playlist of Beatles tunes available on its streaming service Prime, allowing users to listen through a membership or individual song purchase.

“Adding mobile music playlists to Amazon Prime may appeal to a new demographic segment and help drive more memberships,” said David Naumann, director of marketing, Boston Retail Partners. “Promoting the new Beatles playlist on social media will generate more awareness for Prime Music and inspire Amazon Prime members and potential members to explore the Amazon music library.”

Beatlemania
The Beatles have stood the test of time, with their music still significantly popular with all demographics. Spotify and Amazon are targeting a large consumer base, and are likely to drive membership sales.

Amazon is broadening awareness for the playlist through posts on social media with images of iconic Beatles photographs related to a specific song, along with a link to the music. Mobile users are brought to a page, along with a banner ad, to download the Amazon music app.

The Beatles’ fans can listen to a preview of the song by clicking on its icon, but must pay for the individual tune or subscribe to Amazon Prime to hear the entire song. Users can listen to the playlist directly within the mobile page or listen with the app.

The playlist features 50 of the top Beatles songs, and is also promoting a contest to win an Amazon Echo. Prime users who listen to music are automatically entered for the contest, which will have 14 winners and end on New Year’s Eve.

The social media strategy is a response to Spotify’s ad campaign for its addition of The Beatles’ music. Over the holiday weekend, Snapchat users engaged with filters celebrating Spotify’s expansion, which showed pictures of band members with text reading “join the club,” and another saying “all you need is love.”

Amazon delivers
Amazon Prime also expanded its mobile-enabled Prime Now service to include delivery capabilities from a slew of Manhattan eateries and grocery stores, including D’Agostino and Billy’s Bakery, as competition continues to heat up in the delivery application space (see more).

Also, the retailer’s commerce application gained wins among millennial consumers, as evidenced by 76 percent of digital shoppers who have made room for the app on their crowded smartphones, according to a report by Millward Brown Digital (see more).

“Adding highly desirable content, like the 50 Great Beatles Songs, to Amazon Prime helps it compete more effectively with Spotify,” Mr. Naumann said. “With the plethora of other benefits included in Amazon Prime, the overall value proposition of Prime Music is hard for Spotify to match.

“However, Prime Music is still not as comprehensive or have as many features as Spotify; therefore, hard-core music enthusiasts may prefer to stick with Spotify or other more robust streaming apps,” he said.

Final take
Brielle Jaekel is editorial assistant at Mobile Commerce Daily