Good marketing for a fallen Rock Star

The Mail on Sunday appears to be vindicated in its decision to give away the new Prince Album with its editions last Sunday.

Reports suggest that sales were up a third on their usual levels,however will the paper retain this new customers.

Philip Stone writing in follow the media gives his analysis of the decision,this morning

For Prince, the pop musician from Minneapolis, it was
marketing bordering on the genius that has UK CD retailers furious but got the
singer untold millions of $€£ in free promotion for his European concert tour.
For The Mail on Sunday newspaper it was a marketing gem that probably cost
around £500,000 ($1 million) and boosted its circulation by some 500,000 on the
day. So, was it a win-win to give away Prince’s new Plant Earth CD and not sell
it in the shops? For Prince, absolutely, For the Mail on Sunday the jury is
still out.

As he points out for the Mail

early indications are that many of those extra copies
just went for the CDs and the newspapers discarded. A BBC presenter said that a
studio guest had said she was going out to buy 20 copies of the newspaper so her
son could give all those CDs away to his friends.

So perhaps a one off gimmick for the paper and lots of free publicity for a fallen rock star