The Register: Mandy quango says Apple, Amazon are too obscure

From Andrew Orlowski at The Register:

A group sponsored by Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills says more money should be spent telling Britons about iTunes and Amazon, because not enough people know about them. It says the music business should pick up the tab, though.

Last week Consumer Focus released the results of a poll that showed that only six out of 10 people could name a legitimate music service such as Spotify, iTunes or Amazon off the top of their heads. That's not a bad figure, when you consider the number of people on broadband, and the size of the subset that buys things online, and then the sub-subset that wants to buy music online. 33 per cent of all punters could name iTunes, and 24 per cent could name Amazon. The figures were higher with the AB social group, and brand recognition rose to 82 per cent in the 15-34 age bracket.

Problem solved, then? Can we all go home? Well, hang on a minute - you're not thinking like a government-sponsored consumer quango.

Consumer Focus concluded that this isn't enough, and more must be done to make consumers aware of the legal options to buy music online. It wants the music business to pay to promote these obscure companies like Apple and Amazon.
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Established only two years ago, Consumer Focus received £35m in taxpayer money in the most recent year for which accounts are available (ending March 2009), and employs over 100 staff. It came in for criticism for spending £120,000 for bonding sessions for employees, or over £1,000 per head.