Why Zune Failed

Note: this article is part of an assignment in UX Bootcamp I’m currently enrolled in. Feel free to read if you find the topic interesting.

Too pricey

The Zune was innovative in some ways and it was ahead of its time. For example, Zune provided subscription-based access to one’s music library. It cost $15 a month to have access to Zune’s full library of songs. This was a higher price tag for most consumers than what they were already accustomed to — buying each song for about $1. To enter the market with this new model of pricing was challenging at the time because no one else had yet started doing it. So, Zune was too ahead of its time for its own good.

Too late to the market

It was also in a way too late to the market. It was entering a market that had been established 5 years earlier by Apple and was dominated by it.

Marketing needed to be better

Zune did have some differentiating features but its advertising didn’t do a good job selling the product. Robbie Bach, a former Microsoft employee, said,

“I think our marketing message was very confused. I don’t think people walked away saying, this is what Zune is and this is why it’s different. This is why I have to have it. We did some really artsy ads that appealed to a very small segment of the music space, and we didn’t captivate the broad segment of music listeners.”

Summary

Zune had some potential to be a popular product. However, it was too pricey, came too late to the market, and its differentiating features were not marketed well.