iTunes maintains lead in digital music awareness

iTunes remained the digital music brand of which consumers are most aware in 2007, according to results from the fourth annual TEMPO Digital Music Brandscape study, an in-depth examination of fee-based online music brands from global marketing research firm Ipsos Insight. Results show 82% of U.S. downloaders, both fee-based users and file sharers, are now aware of iTunes, with 38% of those thinking of the brand on a top-of-mind basis. “It has become clear that iTunes’ saliency has now reached beyond that of being ‘just’ the top brand presence to being the pre-eminent brand in digital music,” states Karl Joyce, Senior Research Manager with Ipsos Insight and author of the TEMPO study. “Even more telling than awareness and usage, iTunes favorability clearly demonstrates the value of the brand. While perhaps distressing to some, iTunes’ dominance simply cannot be denied.” In addition, half of all downloaders aware of more than one site now consider iTunes to be the best fee-based digital music service, up from 41% in 2006 and 33% in 2005. Data for the study were collected between September 10 and 17, 2007, from a web-based representative sample of 1,826 U.S. downloaders. [via Macworld UK]