Hertz Woos Customers With Free Music Downloads

Forget free GPS — Hertz is sweetening car rental deals by offering Gold Plus Rewards members free music downloads with every rental.

The brand's new Hertz Music Store, the digital dashboard for its Hertz's Movin' with Music program, lets renters acquire music from thousands of artists and in the kick-off the initiative, any Gold Plus Rewards member who rents a car through August 31, 2012 gets three free song downloads per rental.

"For Hertz customers, the connection between the open road and great music runs deep," stated Hertz Chairman and CEO Mark Frissora. "With the Hertz Music Store, loyal Hertz customers will have a new way to download, for free, the music they love, making their travel experiences even more enjoyable."

Qualifying members will receive an email at the end of each month detailing how to redeem the free songs, and in return, must opt in to receive email promotions from Hertz.

The Movin' with Music platform follows the "Best Seats Sweepstakes" collaboration with LiveNation Entertainment earlier this summer, a multi-year sponsorship and marketing alliance that announced the 2012 introduction of Hertz Live Radio to be streamed at Hertz facilities, on Hertz buses and in the Hertz Music Store. 

Next up on the music front, Hertz will debut three stations, The Merge – top 40’s, Route66 – classic rock, and Open Road – modern country music. 

“This is promotion and eCommerce at its best – delivering enhanced value to consumers by providing easy access to Hertz and generating sales to our bottom line while defining and building brand affinity,” commented Frissora. “By closely aligning Hertz with live music and tapping into Live Nation’s multi-channel network, we are changing how we drive interaction among existing and potential customers.”  

Hertz stays au courant on the social media front, with 17,753 Followers on Twitter and 17,753 Likes on Facebook. Recent research by ShareThis and Omnicom’s OMD media unit, revealed that consumers engaged in social activity around Hertz and related topics in the early stages of buying a car were four times as likely to search for car rental terms, twice as likely to visit Hertz’s website, and 30% more likely to make a purchase than those who didn’t engage.

“Hertz will approach marketing strategies in the future by viewing all media through a 360 lens in relation to social media and specifically sharing,” said Jerry Preyss, Hertz vp, global brand marketing and innovation, to Adweek. “This includes incorporating practices like Twitter hashtags, social links and shareable functionality whenever possible. Continuing to implement these and monitor social activity, we’ll be able to further identify peak opportunities within social media to capture our audience and customers.” And keep them groovin' and movin.'