Last fall Radiohead released their new album InRainbows online. Not only did they completely bypass the middle man, but they allowed customers to name their own price.

A good idea?

Radiohead already knew who was listening. They left it up to them to determine the value of their new project and they left it up to them to tell their friends. Huge fan trust. Huge risk.

Did it work?

I had five different people tell me about the album in a matter of two weeks after the release.

Radiohead won’t release its sales numbers, but experts estimate the profit to be in the millions. It’s speculated that the online release brought in the same revenue for the band within the first two weeks.

Everything after that is just frosting…. that really good cream-cheese frosting.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 4:12 am and is filed under Marketing & Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.