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    If you're an artist, run a label, are a venue or a promoter the only thing that really matters is the relationship with your audience. Media Junction Digital is a digital marketing agency in Arts & Entertainment and will help you reach your audience.
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    February 2010
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Spongecell Adverts Approved To Run On Google Adwords http://bit.ly/6giH2H

Media Junction is using a Rich Media advert produced by Spongecell to promote the new Clubbers Guide To Electro album from Ministry Of Sound. However, what’s different is the ad is running on the Google Content network using Adwords technology. This is one of the first times Google EMEA has run a rich media advert within Adwords. The advert allows the potential audience to watch a video, enter a competition as well as click on the ad to buy/download the album.

This wasn’t a quick process and our thanks go to Google for the fast-track approval and in particular to Ministry of Sound for their patience and determination to see the ad go live.

You can see the advert running here 

What is the Lifetime Value of a Music Fan?

I had a very interesting meeting with a company who sell Cost Per Engagement advertising. For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s a form of advertising where the advertiser pays for each engagement (or interaction) with an advert. You all know those expandable ads, right? Well, this is similar. You run your mouse over the ad, it plays a video and if you watch the whole thing, it counts as one engagement and the advertiser hands over a fee.

I’ve previously highlighted how the music industry must start understanding these payment models. Thankfully, I recently saw a feature in Music Ally which analysed the future for ad-funded music services (like Spotify, YouTube etc) and for the first time noted that music people were finally talking about CPM (or, “Cost Per Thousand”). It is quite revealing since I don’t think Labels can discuss ad-funded models without a thorough understanding of how advertising models, i.e. CPM, operate. The music labels have obviously struggled with this concept since they habitually ask for a higher CPM than the advertisers are willing to pay. However, the Music Ally article highlighted that Labels were perhaps starting to understand.

However, just as they figure out one model, advertising has moved on to the next – Cost Per Engagement. This means advertisers will only pay when a user interacts with the advert. What does this mean for the music industry? Well, I think two things, depending on which way you look at it.

The first is from an advertising perspective – if I’m paying on a CPE basis, frankly I don’t care how many or which tracks are played; it’s how many people interact with my advert that counts. Music labels can argue with me all day about the value of their content but if no-one who listens is interested in my adverts, then the music has no value to me. Spotify, We7, YouTube, Last.fm etc can deliver millions of impressions but if users don’t engage with my advert then the value of these services is very low. In fact, the only value is mass awareness, which is becoming a very cheap commodity due to the huge oversupply of ad-inventory. 

This is going to be a big worry for the streaming services , and therefore the labels. Global advertisers such as Proctor & Gamble are now rumoured to ONLY pay for CPE. As these brands look for guaranteed ROI the ad-funded models will need to accept this and therefore, the pay-per-play model the labels insist upon will become even more redundant.

Now let’s look at CPE from a Record Label perspective. I’ve written about this before. Major global advertisers want to are pay per engagement. That is, a brand such as BMW, Kite Kat, etc, will pay a publisher ONLY if someone watches an advert on their site. And yet, music labels are in the enviable position of being paid by publishers for their videos. I understand this – it’s the value of great content. But, the thing is, the concept of CPE is still valid. When someone watches a music video or listens to a track on Spotify, what is it worth, to both the label and the artist? As we can see, major advertisers believe it’s worth a significant amount. And yet labels appear to lack data on the monetary value of a view or a listen. Should labels start paying marketing companies such as ours on a CPE basis? Maybe 10p for every YouTube view we get or 5p for every Facebook Fan? 

To answer this it’s necessary to assign a Lifetime Value to every fan. What is the fan worth over 1 year, 5 year or 10 years? What will they spend on music, merchandise and tickets? How many friends will they introduce? What type of person are they and what synch fees could they attract? 

I am presenting at:
MIDEM, January 25th – “Everything You Need To Know About Digital Advertising”




We’ve just taken on a new website developer – welcome Dan Styles!

Our in-house website development continues to grow with the addition of Dan Styles as our Lead Developer. Dan has a wealth of experience from working in LA for a number of years on websites such as Billabong. He is expert in lots of abbreviations such as PHP, MySQL, Java & Flash. Want websites, e-commerce, databases or expandable leader-boards? Dan lives and breaths ‘em. Not only that, he writes & records wicked D’nB tunes. Here’s one on his Soundcloud.

Leddra Chapman has just been C-listed by Radio 2. Would anyone like an interview?

Leddra Chapman, a 20 year old singer/songwriter, has just been added to the C-list of Radio 2. It followed several plays by Sir Terry on his morning show. Can we petition him to stay longer?

 

You can find out more information about Leddra here, including links to her Quiksilver photos. This is a copy of a press release that I emailed out using Mailchimp, which has a handy ‘Share’ facility.

 

If anyone would like to ask Leddra some questions please let me know. Serious requests only please – at least send a link to any blog you may write.

 

She is touring in February 2010.

Mama Group launch the new Forum website

Mama Group has launched the new website for The Forum. In a similar fashion to the Hammersmith Apollo site, it was a collaboration between Media Junction, Mama Group and Modera. The CMS is designed to allow Mama Group editors to control all aspects of the design and content. 

Facebook update Ad Manager – looks far better but still a long way behind Google AdWords

In a very welcome move Facebook has updated its Ad Manager interface. It contains better navigation, more options and a better, more clear display. We have been advertising on Facebook for over 12 months and in our view they’re still a long way behind Google Ad Words. That said, Facebook is still ahead of other Social Networks, especially its rival MySpace.

When you consider over 18m people in the UK use Facebook on a regular basis, the network represents one of the most powerful advertising & marketing platforms in history. And yet, up till now, the difficulty using the Ad Manager has slowed uptake. Maybe this new update will change things but still a long way to go.

New HMV Hammersmith Apollo site goes live!

The new website for Hammersmith Apollo has just gone live. Production was a collaboration between Mama Group, Modera and Media Junction. It features their future shows, video powered by Muzu and an awesome 3D virtual tour of the venue, supplied by Full Visual. This is the latest in a series of websites we have been involved with for Mama – other include The Fly and Global Gathering.