The archive · Business Models · Strategic decision · 2017
Fender Play: a guitar maker selling beginners the lessons that keep them playing
Fender Play is the instrument maker's $19.99-a-month video subscription that teaches beginners song-first, so their first guitar is not their last.
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
What it had to solve
Fender had watched electric guitar sales shrink while beginners bought acoustic and ukulele — and then gave up. Fender Digital, set up in 2015, launched Fender Play in July 2017 as a subscription video service for beginners, betting that teaching people to play would keep them buying instruments for life.
How it works
Fender knew its own numbers: about nine in ten first-time guitar buyers gave up on the instrument, according to the company. A beginner's first guitar was often the last guitar, which meant no strings, no amps and no second instrument. In 2015 Fender set up Fender Digital, and in July 2017 it launched Fender Play to change the ending.
Fender Play was a subscription video service at $19.99 a month after a 30-day free trial, available on the web and iPhone app in the US, UK and Canada. Its method was deliberately anti-textbook: short instructor-led lessons averaging about eight minutes taught technique through recognizable songs, and a signup questionnaire generated a personalized curriculum.
The company described Fender Play as the first major revenue-generating initiative from Fender Digital. The strategic point was retention: convert a beginner into a player for life, and the instrument business follows the subscription.
Why it lands
- The subscription captured customers at the exact moment they usually quit, making the maker's problem — churn — into a product category.
- Song-first, bite-size lessons matched how beginners actually learn, removing the theory barrier that stalled most of them.
- Data from Fender's own tools shaped the offer: most songs users searched for were not originally guitar songs, so Play taught playing music, not just playing guitar.
- A recurring digital revenue line hedged the instrument market's decline while feeding the hardware business with players who kept going.
What it did
The service turned a maker of physical instruments into a subscription business aimed at the moment its customers were quitting: beginners who reach their first song keep playing, and players who keep playing buy strings, amps and eventually their next guitar.
What you can take
A maker's real product can be the customer's progress: if beginners succeed, the instrument business compounds, so selling the lessons protects the core sale.
Since then
Press coverage framed Fender Play as an old manufacturer learning to sell outcomes rather than objects: CNBC reported that Fender wanted to convert beginners into customers for life, with CEO Andy Mooney noting that only about ten percent of people who pick up guitar want to play in a band. The subscription joined Fender's existing digital tools, including the Riffstation chord service, and became the anchor of Fender Digital's revenue ambitions — a bet that the company that teaches the player will also sell the next instrument.
Sources
- Fender's new guitar-learning platform can teach beginners to play a song in minutes
- Fender goes beyond Hendrix and Clapton fans to reach a mobile-first audience
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