EVENT MODELLING FOR POLICYMAKERS & VALUATION ANALYSTS IN DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION MARKETS: DIGITAL DOWNLOAD STRATEGIES FOR RADIOHEAD’S IN RAINBOWS & NINE INCH NAILS’ THE SLIP A L E X B U R N S (Refereed) (
[email protected]) ‘There’s an unlimited supply.’ – The Sex Pistols, ‘EMI’, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (1978) ‘Yes, it’s pay what you want, including free. Really.’ – Radiohead, In Rainbows.com digital download site (2007) ‘I think the way [Radiohead] parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd. But if you look at what they did, though, it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t see that as a big revolution [that] they’re kinda [sic] getting credit for. To me that feels insincere. It relies upon the fact that it was quote-unquote ‘first,’ and it takes the headlines with it.’ – Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, Triple J’s ‘Hack’ interview (Chartier, 2008). 1. Introduction: Two Market Events & Four Initial Reactions 1.1 Paper Overview & Problem Statement Market events force journalists, policymakers and valuation analysts to make judgments on the basis of ambiguous and incomplete information. This paper explores why Chris Anderson, Scott Anthony and other strategists applaud Radiohead’s In Rainbows (2007) and Nine Inch Nails’ The Slip (2008) as two market events about online digital downloads that might dramatically alter the digital music industry’s structure, firms, and business models.