Some Sirius Evolution

The domino effect just never gets old, does it? Especially in this commercial that uses some stand-ins recalling the musicality of yesteryear.

Eric O'Shea- TV Commercials

Need better songs to help promote products!

Hottest Products of 2007

Where the Buzz Was each year, a new crop of products takes center stage -- that handful of items that really seems to resonate with consumers and the media. Whether the products are highly anticipated or they shoot up out of nowhere, they create a tremendous amount of buzz. So which products were hottest this year? From toys to drinks to gadgets, click through the gallery to see the top 15 picks.

Getting The Led Out

To promote its newest album, "Mothership", Led Zeppelin partnered with the website netdisaster.com to enable fans to direct mothership vessels to crash through the web pages of their choosing. The practice is called "Zeppelising" the net.

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.