Brian Hazard of the Music Think Tank published a comprehensive post addressing the pay-for-play model that online streaming playlist service, Jango, adopted as part of its monetization strategy, dispelling the analogy to terrestrial radio payola and drawing references to mainstream advertising mediums. In March, I promoted Jango Airplay and touched on the controversial issues Brian addresses in his piece but his first-hand experience and engaging write-up of the music dotcom serves the topic more justice: Is Jango Payola?
IEG, a global leader in sponsorship consulting services, valuation and measurement, published promising figures for US music sponsorship spending for 2009, in spite of the current economic climate. The report highlights the consistent growth in the ‘big ticket’ live music sector, while noting that local music events and properties are displaying a decline in sponsorship support.
Recent deals include J. C. Penney Co.’s two-year integrated partnership with Rascal Flatts on behalf of its American Living brand; The Clorox Co. co-presenting the US stops of Keith Urban’s tour on behalf of its KC Masterpiece sauces and Kingsford charcoal; and Research In Motion Ltd. aligning with U2 on behalf of BlackBerry.
Tighter budgets for working class musicians is expected as a reflection of the music industry’s flux, but cashflows in the direction of A-listers may [eventually] trickle down toward the indies as competition for aligning brand with band stiffens.
“When we launched our free digital distribution service, we knew we would be able to provide our users with new possibilities to help them expand their own marketing. With Jango Airplay, our users can freely invest into getting radio promotions and establish unique social interactions with new fans to help drive music sales. We are very excited to be working with Jango to provide an effective marketing avenue to our users.” said Kevin Rivers, Founder and CEO of WaTunes.
“We designed Jango Airplay to give emerging artists an affordable and effective way to get their music proactively played to real listeners who like similar music. Thanks to WaTunes and affordable technology it is cheaper than ever to produce and sell music – but getting your music heard is the first step. We are very excited to bring WaTunes users in front of our 6 Million listeners. ” said Mattias Stanghed, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Jango.
Presumably in response to EMI’s recent formal complaint and Warner’s lawsuit last year, SeeqPod filed for Chapter 11 with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of California two days ago. The music search engine which rolled out an attractive pay-for-play advertising programme for artists is liquidating its assets by selling its source code to developers for $5000, perhaps encouraging many services just like SeeqPod to emerge in the future. Yet another sorry day for the music industry…
International advertising powerhouse, Ogilvy & Mather, produced a high-octane media campaign for the Crystal Lite powdered soft drink brand by Krafts Foods. Yet another example of consumer brands converging with music sensations to compete and differentiate in the marketplace, Kraft has aligned itself with Grammy Award winning artist, Estelle, for the pre-release and distribution of her song, “Star”. The US campaign was launched in tandem with the Grammy Awards Ceremony last month and drew traffic to the co-venture landing page by offering a free download of “Star” prior to its release in stores this month. Estelle fans divulged their email addresses in exchange for site access and a free and exclusive download of the song.
Associating brands with entertainment media and music celebrity is tried and tested territory for corporations such as VW, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Apple, and other leading giants of cool. However, the phenomenon appears to be spreading to more conservative brands attempting to revitalize their message and acquire a new audience base, both to listen and to buy.
Digital music distribution is a hot item on this blog and those who read it know that I keep a close eye on the three major players catering to small independents, namely ReverbNation, TuneCore, and CD Baby. All three have lowered the barrier of entry for indie artists and small labels to distribute their catalogues to iTunes and other major online retailers for upfront fees as opposed to hefty commissions by the likes of The Orchard, INgrooves, IODA, IRIS, and others, who generally avoid small players anyway. Now, a new digital music distribution dotcom has emerged but with an ad-supported business model. WaTunes aims to thrive on ad revenue by providing artists and labels with a free (no frontend fees, no backend commissions) distribution channel to online retailers such as iTunes, Napster, and eMusic.
The slightly questionable website service description and makeshift appearance promises to provide the same level of content marketing and distribution as its rivals, and much more. In theory, WaTunes is offering a very attractive service to a huge potential market, but is it sustainable? SpiralFrog, We7 and Qtrax have yet to prove that their ad-supported download services have legs. In this economy, I’m not sure that any upstart can scale on advertising revenue alone.
Business models aside, I’m somewhat concerned about WaTunes’ cryptic service description and the fact that their web pages are riddled with spelling mistakes and poor marketing copy. It’s a bit like walking into a fancy restaurant only to notice that the toilets are overflowing with shit halfway through your dinner. Going with my gut here (no pun intended), I feel that the musician-led platform may be biting off more than they can chew… but I would love to be proven otherwise. I like free. Who doesn’t?
Music search engine, SeeqPod, that has already indexed (but not stored) 12 million songs, has been handed a formal complaint from EMI following a lawsuit from Warner last year. Unlike Pandora and Imeem, the company has not pursued licenses to provide “playable search results” maintaining that they are not responsible for content sources and, therefore, free from any obligation to the copyright holder. Legally questionable, Seeqpod has become very successful and the two major labels are probably going after it to settle on a mutual business model rather than to shut it down. The news prompted me to play with the system a little and I enjoyed learning about their artist-centric advertising progamme that’s highly targeted and cost competitive. Providing 5000 “exposures” (i.e. impressions) a month for $19.95, SeeqPod Echo is a nicely put together search-oriented advertising interface which may very well generate some relevant traffic for artists and music promoters who wish to tap into SeeqPod’s massive music listening community. I’m curious to learn how the conversion rates stack up.
IEG, a global leader in sponsorship consulting services, valuation and measurement, published promising figures for US music sponsorship spending for 2009, in spite of the current economic climate. The 
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