Tag Archives: Twitter

Ford’s hands-on American Idol product placements

By March 18 2010, 10:50 am Leave a comment

Some would argue that music-based talent contests are nothing more than a production line for pop stars. We’ll they’d be wrong – they also make cars too.  


American Idol is one of the prime resources for embedded brands in the US TV market, ranking amongst the most coveted and active product placement media channels available. At a time when marketers are culling ad spend the role of embedded media is upping its presence. One such brand pushing its AI integrations hard is Ford, which has announced that the top 12 contestants will now feature in a segment which will see them designing and customising 2011 Ford Fiestas. Yes, you heard right, Casey James (vehicle design pictured above) and other finalists will be part of the Ford production line. “This year, the Idols will get a closer experience with our vehicles as they interact with our designers and customize a Fiesta design that reflects their own personality,” said Connie Fontaine, manager, Ford Brand Content and Alliances.

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The Tweet 40

By September 18 2009, 12:00 pm Leave a comment

Vodafone is building upon it’s presence in the micro-blogging platform Twitter in an attempt to drive traffic to its Vodafone Music store. The mobile operator has created a new service which it is billing as the “first-ever interactive real-time top 40 chart for music lovers”. Making use of Twitter’s ‘hashtag’ capabilities, users add the artist and track name that they are listening to, proceeded by the RealTop40 hashtag. These votes are aggregated on the realtimetop40.com website, where a constantly updating top 40 list sits and of course all tracks can be purchased from the Vodafone Music webstore.

The headline-grabbing, investment-driving phenomena that is Twitter has stamped it’s place firmly into the Zeitgeist. From Obama to Stephen Fry it’s hooked an estimated 10m users worldwide, claiming consistent year on year growth of 1000%. If MySpace is synonymous with music and Facebook for friends. Twitter is about opinion and soap-boxing. What’s more, researchers at Penn State University found that 20% of tweets are about brands, so harnessing and shaping the platform’s chit-chat (and making it positive) has never been so vital.

Along the same lines as wearehunted.com, the Real Top 40 is a neat activation. Music has broad appeal and people are willing express their opinions on it, so the activation is inherently viral. Moreover it makes use of the Twitter’s hashtag functionality and carefully, almost surreptitiously mobilizes Twitterers off-site for a soft-sell with relevance.

Four tips for mobilizing those Tweeters:

1. Give them a reason to engage
Deliver an activation that is interactive and go for instant gratification, Tweeters want to be a part of something there and then.

2. Make it viral
Of course the realm of Twitter is inherently viral, but build in broad appeal to your activation to ensure it echos.

3. No one likes a pushy brand
Allow the users to own it and let your brand take the back seat. This is their territory so be respectful. In the case of Vodafone’s activation there is no company name grandstanding. The branding amounts to a logo on the website.

4. Offer, don’t sell
Of course there is an end game to all this, but again don’t be too pushy. The ‘offer’ should have relevance.

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Twitter’s new birdsong for brands

By June 25 2009, 10:17 am Leave a comment

Those who have dismissed Twitter, the 140 character micro-blogging platform, as a waste of time and effort may need to re-evaluate their perception of the service as a valuable platform for music marketing. A new report suggests that it could offer up a potentially very powerful new tool for brand marketeers in accessing two huge consumer passions – Music and Socialising.

A new study from NPD Group reveals a strong correlation between Twitter devotees and music, with active Twitter users buying 77% more digital music downloads on average than non-users. The study also highlighted that one-third of Twitter users listen to music via social networks, 41% listen via online radio and 39% watched music videos online. “Twitter has the potential to help foster the discovery of new music, and improve targeted marketing of music to groups of highly-involved and technologically savvy consumers,” said NPD entertainment analyst Russ Crupnick.

With the amount of time spent on the micro-social network having increased by a sizeable 175% since last year (from 6 minutes to 17 minutes), and another report highlighting the services dedicated niche audience (10% of Twitter users are generating around 90% of all Tweets), the platform has opened up a valuable marketing tool for music. How to leverage this new tool however, is another question entirely and one which will require expertise, insight and creativity in order to fully exploit its potential. With 67% of top Fortune 500 technology companies not yet involved with Twitter – according to one study-  it is clear that there is still an air of uncertainty surrounding the platform. However, the service is now a ubiquitous part of Internet culture with musicians among the key players here – Britney Spears has netted over 2M followers in 9 months, John Mayer 1.5M and P Diddy, Miley Cyrus and Coldplay are not far behind. Now more than ever, brands need to be seen to be engaging with new social media such as Twitter in a sustainable, long term, relevant and credible way – and music would appear to be a crucial touch point for reaching and nurturing this new audience.

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