EMI Sets Up Its Own Online Store As YouTube Tries Selling Music

from the try,-try-again dept

Lots of folks are trying to figure out new business models in the music space, and here we have two separate big companies testing out ideas that seem unlikely to work all that well. First up is EMI, the big record label that keeps insisting that its going a different route but can't seem to reign in its lawyers from taking the same old route. This time around, it's launching its own music download site, where it's promising lots of extras and goodies -- including some stuff for free. It will be interesting to see how the actual site is set up, but the idea of setting up just a label specific site seems destined to fail. People want a one-stop shop. They don't want to have to know that the music they like is on EMI. Imagine, back when people bought CDs, if they had to go to a different store for each record label. Maybe there's more to it than what's being described, but at first pass, this sounds like more of the same: a big record label sticking a square peg into a round hole, covering it with shiny paint, and talking about how awesome it is.

Then there's Google, which has been struggling mightily to come up with ways to make money off of YouTube. At the same time, record labels have been complaining about how much "music" (accompanied by videos, of course) is available on YouTube, and the folks at Google put two and two together and will start offering options to buy the songs you hear on YouTube at partner sites such as Amazon or iTunes. While it's not a bad idea (why not offer people a chance to buy if they want it), it's hard to see this really getting that much traction. Some people may go ahead and buy out of convenience, but it's hard to see people actually doing that much music "shopping" this way.

Filed Under: advertising, clickthroughs, music, portals, selling
Companies: emi, google, youtube

If The Google-Yahoo Deal Is Bad For Advertisers Or Publishers, Isn't That Just An Opportunity?

from the what's-the-problem? dept

I recognize that in times of financial crisis, it may seem more difficult than ever to imagine unique and innovative opportunities cropping up -- but it's often in such times that the most innovative businesses are formed. How quickly we forget, for instance, that Google's own business model was formed during the barren years following the last dot com bubble burst. Yet, for some reason, people seem to think that today's offerings are the be-all and end-all of innovation. That's why we get these articles worrying about how a Google-Yahoo ad deal will be bad for advertisers and publishers. Yet, there's little evidence to actually support that. The article linked above cites the easily disproved anecdote from the NY Times last month about one guy who had a spammy site that Google punished. That was the guy's own fault, not Google's.

But, really, the most important point ignored in most of these discussions is that if Google really does make ad prices higher and share less with its AdSense publisher partners, that would create a huge opportunity for others, whether large incumbents or small startups, to step into that breach. If I had to bet, I'd say that there are already companies working on solutions that are more interesting and more valuable than Google's advertising plays. There are companies who are recognizing that "advertising" is not necessarily the best model, and they're working on better solutions that won't even seem like advertising at all -- but will start to take advertising dollars away from traditional ad companies. Just as Microsoft couldn't see the threat of Google for many years, Google won't even notice these companies on its radar, and while everyone's fretting a Google "monopoly" in search ads, the next revolution will be bubbling up somewhere else entirely.

Filed Under: advertising, antitrust, monopolies, search
Companies: google, yahoo

How To Do Advertising On YouTube: Make It Awesome

from the content-equals-advertising dept

In the past, as we've talked about how advertising is content and content is advertising, we've pointed out that many folks who worry about "advertising" on YouTube are missing out on the fact that the YouTube videos are advertising themselves. But, of course, with millions and millions of videos on YouTube, it helps to do something special. Our own Tim Lee sent over this example of a YouTube video about a Nintendo Wii game that's worth watching in its entirety, just to see what happens. Can't say much more about it, other than that you should watch the whole thing. It acts as fantastic content and fantastic advertising in a single shot -- without "overlays" or "prerolls" or anything like that. It's yet another example of how a YouTube video fits in when people recognizes that content is advertising... and advertising is content.

Filed Under: advertising, content, video, wii
Companies: google, nintendo, youtube

The First Rule Of Product Placement In Songs: You Don't Talk About Product Placement In Songs

from the that-ought-to-make-quite-a-tune dept

We've pointed out recently that as brand advertisers recognize increasingly that content is advertising, they're looking to all sorts of new ways to do "product placement" in places you might not expect. For example, we've talked about product placement in novels. But, what better place for product placement than in a song? Lots of famous songs mention brand names, and it seems some creative advertisers are now going out and trying to sell such placement. At least that's what's being suggested after some guys who received an unsolicited offer to have their brand in a song went and published the email they received. The email notes:

"I'm writing because we feel you may be a good company to participate in a brand integration campaign within the actual lyrics of one of the worlds most famous recording artists upcoming song/album."

Of course, now there's also something of a dispute concerning the publicizing of the email. The guy who apparently sent the email is threatening to sue the recipients who posted it to their blog -- though it's entirely unclear what they'd be suing over, other than that someone called them out for their marketing practices.

In the meantime, I don't see any problem with bands mentioning brands in their songs, but it seems like there are much better ways of doing that, which don't seem quite so tacky as unsolicited emails asking people to pay up to get included in a song.

Filed Under: advertising, product placement, songs, threats

MySpace's Music Offering: Ignoring The Elephant In The Room

from the good-luck dept

MySpace has been prepping its own music offering for quite some time, and Fortune reveals the basic details. They're somewhat... underwhelming. It's basically a scaled up version of that UK startup we wrote about last week, where we noted that you don't beat piracy by being more annoying. Basically, MySpace will let people post streamable music on their sites, and will then sell ads against the music, as well as link to sites like iTunes and Amazon for people who want to actually buy the tracks.

There's nothing wrong with the idea. But, it's unlikely to make much of a difference in the market. To say, as Fortune does, that this "promises to be the most significant rollout of a digital-music service since Apple's iTunes" is either hyperbole or (more likely) a statement on how awful other music services have been in the interim. Yet, it also ignores the elephant in the room (as does the MySpace store) which is that it only focuses on one reason why people download unauthorized music: the free part. Yes, MySpace music will be free. But will it also match the other reasons why people like file sharing systems? The convenience? The fact that it's unencumbered with annoying ads or DRM? The aspect of sharing and helping to promote other artists?

MySpace's offering will have some of that, but there's no downloading. People will be able to create playlists and share them, but that doesn't seem all that different than, say, iMeem. As if to prove that no one involved in this project wants to mention the elephant of file sharing, check out this quote from Luke Wood, executive VP of Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M record label:

"This is how people discover music now. It's not happening through people reading Rolling Stone. It's not happening through the radio. It's happening through social networks online."

Is it really that difficult for folks in the industry to at least admit that many, many people discover new music through file sharing? They don't have to say that it's okay or that it's legal. But if they're going to come up with something that really competes, they should at least be willing to admit what's really happening in the marketplace. This is not to knock MySpace and the labels for trying something different. It's great that they're trying -- but pretending that file sharing doesn't exist isn't how you respond to the market threat. Without being willing to even mention the elephant, it's hard to believe that the response is going to be able to compete with the elephant.

Filed Under: advertising, file sharing, free, music, social networks
Companies: myspace

Will A Google/Yahoo Ad Deal Really Impact Ad Prices?

from the not-so-clear dept

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has sent a letter to the Justice Department opposing Yahoo's plan to hand much of its search advertising over to Google. We've already explained some reasons why this combination shouldn't set off antitrust alarms, but the reasons given by the ANA don't make much sense. It claims that the deal would basically mean that one company would control 90% of the market, which would lead to increased prices for advertisers. However, that doesn't necessarily seem true to follow -- because Google doesn't set prices for ads. Google's ad system is, famously, an auction system where the prices are set by the market. So it's difficult to see why the inclusion of Yahoo's ad inventory would significantly raise the prices -- unless the argument is that the market is artificially depressed right now, and this would just raise it to the proper levels. However, apparently, that might not matter much, as reports are coming out that the Justice Department has already hired a big time antitrust lawyer to use against Google. This is increasingly looking like a political attack on a company that is "big" rather than looking to see if its success actually harms or helps consumers.

Filed Under: advertising, antitrust, auctions, justice department, monopolies, prices, search marketing
Companies: google, yahoo

How To Respond To Criticism: EA's Tiger Woods Walks On Water Ad

from the nice-shot dept

In an age where anyone can speak up, and anyone can criticize you, the first reaction of many folks is to hit back hard -- even trying to take down critical info. As we all know, that's exactly the wrong thing to do. But, it's still quite difficult to turn something that's negative into a positive quite as well as video game company EA just did. Mathew Ingram has the details, but basically, when last year's version of EA's Tiger Woods golfing game came out, some users made a video jokingly pointing out that a glitch in the game allows Tiger Woods to stand in the middle of a water trap and take a shot: With this year's version coming out, EA actually took that video as inspiration for a new ad, "responding" to that video, by showing that it wasn't a "glitch" at all, but that Tiger really can walk on water and hit a golf ball: Now that's a good response to some criticism.

Filed Under: advertising, criticism, golf, response, tiger woods, video, walk on water
Companies: ea

The Blurring Borders Of Music And Advertising: P&G Starts A Record Label With Def Jam

from the soap-opera dept

For a while now, we've been pointing out that people in both the advertising and content businesses need to recognize that they're both in the same business. All advertising is content, and all content is advertising -- whether intentional or not. The latest example of this is pointed out by reader lavi d, who points us to a clip from NPR's All Things Considered about how Procter & Gamble has teamed up with Def Jam records to create a new record label: Tag Records, which is connected to the P&G product Tag Body Spray.

Rather than bringing on a big name star to "endorse" its product, Tag Records has signed a relative unknown, and is basically promoting both this new musician, Q, and the body spray at the same time. The music doesn't necessarily directly promote the body spray, but the promotions go hand in hand, and there is no real border between the content and the advertising. If the content itself is good content, it doesn't much matter. And, it appears that other brands are following suit. The radio clip notes that the energy drink Red Bull is apparently building its own studio to do the same thing. To some extent, it's no surprise that Def Jam would recognize this as a direction to go in: we pointed out in the past how a bunch of hip hop music execs were way ahead of the curve in recognizing new business models where the music itself is part of the promotion for something else.

And here, once again, we're seeing a totally new business model for the music business. Suddenly the success of the musicians on these labels isn't as much about selling music as it is in getting the music out there to promote other products as well. This doesn't mean (as I'm sure some angry commenters will imply) that all music will soon have some sort of consumer packaged goods connection -- but it shows, once again, that new business models emerge, and those business models will ensure that plenty of good content continues to show up. Because, if the music put out by these record labels suck, then it won't do much good for anyone: the consumer goods they're connected to, the musicians or the labels.

Filed Under: advertising, content, hip hop, music, record label, tag body spray
Companies: def jam, p&g, procter & gamble, tag records

Create An Ad For An Online Gambling Company? Face Jail Time!

from the is-that-even-illegal? dept

The US gov't has long had an odd fascination with stopping online gambling (except for horse racing -- which politicians engage in -- and state lotteries, for obvious reasons). Sometimes, this obsession reaches bizarre levels, such as the claim a few years back that it wasn't just illegal to run an online gambling operation, but that it was illegal to help advertise one. Most have pointed out that this has little actual legal basis, and is likely a violation of free speech rights -- but that hasn't stopped the government from using such threats.

Two years ago, the feds charged some ad execs with a whole bunch of crimes simply because they had the company BetOnSports as a client. BetOnSports, of course, was completely legal outside the US, but that didn't stop the US from claiming otherwise (even arresting BetOnSports' CEO as he was traveling through the US in a completely separate action from the lawsuit in this post). Even if it turns out that BetOnSports is somehow illegal, it makes no sense to drag in execs from a totally different company that only created promotional campaigns for BetOnSports. That hardly seems to deserve getting charged criminally.

But, when the gov't wants to put you down, it finds a way. The three ad execs have now all plead guilty in the case. Even though they had nothing to do with running the gambling site, they agreed to a plea bargain to avoid a lengthy and costly trial that could have resulted in a lot of jail time. It's not clear yet what the sentences will be in this case, as that will be announced in October, but at least some of the execs may get off without jail time. That's good, but it still remains ridiculous that they had to go through this two year ordeal just because they created promotions for the company.

Filed Under: advertising, gambling, online gambling
Companies: betonsports

Newspaper Content Is Advertising For More News Content

from the follow-this-through dept

I haven't had much time lately to add any new posts to my series of posts on how content is advertising, but a great post from Steve Yelvington is a perfect example of how this works in the news business. Yelvington refers to a blog post by Jay Rosen where he explains how listening to the radio show This American Life explaining the credit crunch (titled "The Giant Pool of Money" -- which, indeed is an excellent explanation) brought him up to speed on the story, and made him hunger for more news on that topic:

I noticed something in the weeks after I first listened to "The Giant Pool of Money." I became a customer for ongoing news about the mortgage mess and the credit crisis that developed from it. Previously I had skipped over such reports because I just didn't understand the story. Now I did. 'Twas was a successful act of explanation that put me in the market for information. Before that moment I had ignored hundreds of news reports about Americans losing their homes, the housing market crashing, banks in trouble.

In other words, the good content that made up the radio program advertised other news stories about that topic. At the same time, it helped advertise This American Life as a good source of information, and will certainly make Jay Rosen go back to that program in the future if they run similar "explain this big confusing mess" type programs. So, if you were a news organization, perhaps in the financial space, that wanted more and more people looking at your coverage of the credit crisis, wouldn't it make sense to help finance a popular radio program to do such a "layman's explanation" knowing that you'd make up the money in greater readership (and greater ad volume)? Once again, we see how good content is advertising -- though not in the way that people traditionally think of it.

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Other posts in this series:

• Advertising Is Content; Content Is Advertising
• On Content, Promotions, Basic Economics... And Loutish Statements
• Content Is Advertising... In The Newspaper Industry
• Content Is Advertising... On TV
• Newspaper Content Is Advertising For More News Content

Filed Under: advertising, business models, content is advertising, news, newspapers