The Midas Touch?

King of Spain, Juan Carlos made international headlines last week for telling Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez to shut up at an Ibero-American summit meeting in Chile. The marketing signifcance of it?.....The phrase "Por que no te callas?" or "Why don't you shut up?" has since been turned into a ringtone and downloaded by half a million people, earning the enterprising ringtone makers $2.2 Million to date.

Tesco Ads Some Holiday Spice

From Ad Supported to Sponsor Supported?

The debate over pay per download vs. ad supported vs. subcription models may now have a new entrant into the mix. RCRD LBL, an online music label just up that offers sponsor supported mp3s completely free to consumers has forged relationships with companies like Puma, Nikon and Virgin America to distribute music freely in exchange for sponsorship dollars. Perusing the artists currently offered through the site, it's hard to make a leap of faith that such a model could exist at the 'majors' level, but it's another interesting twist on a wide open music marketplace.

A Marketing Campaign That Lives Forever: Priceless

Mastercard's Priceless campaign, now a part of the pervasive pop culture psyche, joins forces with one of the most recognizable US football players and brand spokespersons to create Priceless Pep Talks. In the same vein as Career Builder's 'Monkey-Mail' marketing tool, and New Line Cinema's 'send a phone call from Samuel L. Jackson' for "Snakes on a Plane", MasterCard and Peyton Manning have crafted a number of facetious pep talks that can be personalized for greater poignancy. Don't have much of a social life at the moment? Peyton thinks you should learn some new dance moves.

Computerworld : DRM-free music boosts online album sales

check out the full article:

November 11, 2007 (Macworld UK) -- Even if some of the major labels remain shy of them, actual data shows paying music customers will buy non-DRM tracks at four times the rate they purchase music with DRM (Digital Rights Management) attached.

According to U.K. music download store 7 Digital, DRM-free music downloads are outselling other formats provided by the online music store by a factor of four to one. Given the choice, consumers prefer MP3 DRM-free formats, the website explains.

Good news, too, for the albums market, where DRM-free MP3s downloads are encouraging the purchase of digital album bundles, with 70 percent of MP3 downloads by value being albums. Physical album sales in the U.K. declined 20 percent this year.

It all adds up. The company observes that 78 percent of track and album downloads through its service are now in MP3 format, stripped of DRM.

7 Digital also confirmed that data rates and compression count, admitting that consumers "greatly prefer high-quality MP3s encoded at 320kbps" rather than WMA or AAC, the format offered by iTunes.

7digital.com also announced that more than 60 percent of its 3 million-strong music catalogue is now available in DRM-free MP3 format and that it expects that proportion to increase to close to 100 percent by summer next year.

"Consumers are a lot savvier than some people think, and overwhelmingly choose MP3 over any other format when given the choice. MP3 is the only truly interoperable format that works with the iPod, most mobile phones (including the iPhone) and all MP3 players," said Ben Drury, MD of 7digital.com.

"The MP3 format is also good for the music industry as a whole. As physical sales on the high street and online continue to drop, it is vital that labels find a way to increase digital album sales to make up the shortfall. In order for music industry revenues to flourish again, all four majors need to get on board and make music available to the consumer in the format of their choice," concluded Drury, who is also deputy chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).

Sony's Bravia Ad Painted Gold

Sony's "Paint" spot for its Bravia LCD line was named the most awarded commercial of 2007 globally by the Gunn Report.

The Guinness Book of Viral Advertising

Guinness is not launching its newest advertisement on TV. In fact, to the normal eye the advertisement isn't being launched anywhere. Hidden somewhere on the web, Guinness has created an Internet treasure hunt for the ad, with clues amongst video clips and beer blogs for one savvy sleuth to find and unlock to the masses. With the level of difficulty set high however, prospective hunters may want to remain sober. The main contest site is located at GuinnessTipping.com. The first domino clue is apparently hidden in this video:

Merchandising PiZazzle from MySpace

Artists on MySpace can create and sell their own merchandise through a virtual merch store widget embeddable on MySpace pages. The widget is the result of a partnership between MySpace and Zazzle, an 'On-Demand Retail' company. Artists will have the freedom to set their own royalty rates, anywhere from 10% to 99% of the retail price, while incurring no up front production costs. Maybe cooler for fans of artists who set up these merch stores is the ability to customize any product with their own photos, colors, designs, etc. Wow, now even merchandising has gone 2.0!

Hulu Hoopla

Hulu.com, a video sharing hub created by NBCU and News Corp. has just launched in private beta. Dubbed by some as a potential "YouTube Killer", Hulu offers users access to full length television programming, feature films, clips and other content. Currently, programming has been made available by NBC, Fox, Sony, MGM, Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox. Key points of differentiation from YouTube, however, include the fact that users are not able to post their own content. They can, though, take content to post to their own websites, blogs, etc., even splicing the video to create new in times and out times. Additionally, each video contains a 15 or 30 second ad that cannot be skipped. Hulu has also partnered with AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo to place its programming on their video sites. Surely, the muscle behind Hulu is banking on its format becoming 'the next big thing' in marrying video and the internet, and music videos will be right there on the front line.

Vringo is its Name-O

Vringo, a video ringtone service now up and running in public beta phase is set to give the ringtone a makeover. Not only does it make video (both licensed and user generated) available as a 'visual ring', but it changes the paradigm for ringtone delivery; instead of me determining what ring plays on my phone when a given aquaintance calls, my aquaintance would dictate the video ringtone appearing on my handset at their call. At a time when the ringtone/mastertone business has started to flatten out, this may be a perfectly timed shot in the arm.

Separated at birth?

On the left: old press shot for Apple iPod Nano . On the right: new press shot for Sony Cybershot camera.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/25/apple-and-sony-like-peas-in-an-ipod/

Off-Road but On Message

If the line between entertainment and advertising isn't already completely lost to you, check out Toyota's new commercial set amidst 'World of Warcraft' videogame scenery.

MySpace Gets In The Game

MySpace and casual gaming company Oberon Media have announced a partnership to create a MySpace Gaming Channel for launch in early 2008. The games themselves will be embeddable, and offer multi-player modes inviting competition amongst friends. Participants will also be able to chat with one another while playing. Of course, not to be forgotten is the allure for advertisers of being able to place ads in and around the games - an advertising terrain attractive for marketers targeting a captive gaming audience.

Dance Dance Resolution

South Korean Company, Samsung takes choreography to an entirely new level, using over 1,100 people and apparently only clothing (no cards) to create a gigantic human LCD Television and programming to boot.

For Consumers with a Street Tooth

Honda's new advertising campaign for its CR-V SUV focuses on consumer cravings. To this end, Honda has purchased indulgent search words like "cupcakes", "chocolate" and "banana split" as part of an SEM initiative to direct people with a sweet tooth to its website to play a "Guess What You Crave" game. The game uses an image of the CR-V's navigation screen to ask a player 20 questions, after which it guesses what the player is craving. Too bad it can't emit that "new car smell" through the computer; that's always been the deal sealer for me.

Arcade Fire: First Interactive Video?

We've seen interactive ads, games, short stories, teasers... but a full length video? Check out the new video from Arcade Fire.

Using the car as a platform and distribution channel for music

In a digital age where the CD is losing it's fanbase, the automobile industry is shifting it's focus to the newer medias of music. Out with the old and in with the new. Some examples below...





Sony BMG & Honda re teaming up on an online branded music player to jointly promote new video releases and the Honda Civic model. The player will feature Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, and Dido amongst others.


http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003654898





The Twingo Nokia is a music-enabled phone on wheels. The new car features an MPS-compatible radio & CD player (with USB, jack & iPod inputs), steering wheel controls, hands-free bluetooth phone control, and GPS navigation via the new Nokia 6110 Navigator phone.


http://www.twingoconcept.com/

Hugo Boss Holds Court

Finding an attractive way to market its brand in a place where a multitude of eyes are focusing at once, Hugo Boss used models as ballgirls at the Madrid Masters Tennis Tournament last week.

Smart Like a Foxy?

Rapper Foxy Brown's sentencing to a year in jail in late September makes her another in a growing field of female recording stars running afoul of the law and public opinion. Foxy and team, however, appear to be embracing her mishap as part of the marketing strategy for her new album, creating the website freefoxybrown.com. The pretense of the site is to allow Foxy to stay in touch with her fans while she's incarcerated, but with heavy promo language around her forthcoming album, and links for ringtones and merchandise, the "free Foxy" message looks more like a fox(y) in sheep's clothing. A more fitting adage may be, 'You do the crime, you sell the rhymes.'

Functional Fantasies?

Came across an interesting adaptation to the fantasy sports hobby that has become an obsession for many sports nuts (19 million participants in the U.S. and Canada alone according the Fantasy Sports Trade Association) - a similar points based fantasy game for wannabe TV Executives.
TVBigShot.com provides players with a virtual budget of $300 Million dollars with which to create their own television network comprised of existing shows. Points are earned on actual ratings performances, finishing first for a specific time-slot, ratings growth, magazine covers, Golden Globe awards, etc. Players can then buy and sell the programs in their network to further bolster their budgets and points totals.

For the networks themselves, interactive involvement by viewers to this degree has to be appealing on account of the heightened attentiveness that participants will likely give to guest appearances and other newsworthy items, which in turn can generate added promotional buzz amongst the players themselves. Moreover, if networks are tapped into why players are selling specific shows, and for what reason, there are learnable opportunities for possibly turning a show around, or fortuitously cutting the chord sooner rather than later.

Now, considering that most people's career daydreams involve themselves as a Rock Star, and that settling for the life of a Record Label Executive isn't too far behind, why couldn't a fantasy game for wannabe music executives be a big success? Say, give players a virtual budget with which to invest in a number of actual upcoming releases. Points could be accrued on sales success, chart position, magazine covers, Grammy and music video awards, and lost upon release delays, etc. The insight which could be gleaned for artists attracting a lot of investment attention, as well as the increased awareness of album release dates before they've streeted, would certainly be valuable for informing the real decisions that occur within our walls.