Feist sales soar thanks to iPod nano ad

The use of Feist's song "1, 2, 3, 4" in an iPod Nano television commercial that's saturating the airwaves has resulted in a major sales boost for the Canadian singer's track. In the early part of September, Feist's single was moving about 2,000 downloads per week, and the album was selling at a rate of about 6,000 per week based on figures from Nielsen SoundScan. Most recently, however, the track is moving more than 73,000, hitting number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. Nielsen's BuzzMetrics, which monitored the number of searches for terms like "1234," "iPod," and "Nano" found that after Labor Day weekend, when the ad was played repeatedly, discussion of the iPod Nano ad was boosted 402 percent, according to Reuters.

Apple's third-generation iPod nano, featured in the spots, offers a larger, 2-inch screen with a 320x240 resolution that supports video playback as well as the high-quality games that first shipped with the fifth-generation iPod; Sudoku, Vortex, and one other game are included out of the box, according to Apple. The design completely eliminates the use of plastic end caps while becoming even thinner than before at 0.25 inches. The higher 204 dots-per-inch resolution -- the most ever for an Apple-made device -- includes a new split-screen interface that shows album art and other content on one side while scrolling through menus on another. Cover Flow is now a part of the design and lets users brows music and videos by album covers or video previews, viewing track details after selecting the album.

Filed under: iPod