MySpace Music launches (with Kevin Rudd’s playlist)
MySpace Australia has launched one of its largest ever ventures in music platform MySpace Music, a new part of the social networking site where users can publicly share playlists, buy music, and track what celebrities are listening too.
The launch in Australia follows the launch in the US in September 2008. MySpace Music is a joint venture between MySpace, EMI Music, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, with users able to access ITunes via the platform.
While MySpace profiles for bands and artists have for a while been streaming promotional songs, this launch offers both a home for the service, and an opportunity to provide more indepth back catalogues of artists to both buy and make free personalised collections of streamed songs.
Playlists can then be shared with friends and the public with postings on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Rebekah Horne, MySpace managing director and senior vice president international, described it as “360 degree combination of commerce, distribution and discovery”.
Toyota and KFC have signed up as the inaugural sponsors of MySpace Music in Australia. Toyota’s sponsorship package includes a MySpace branded community called The Pulse, for its Toyota Yaris. The Pulse will showcase two celebrity playlists each month as well as offering prizes.
The sponsorship is KFC’s first ever online sponsorship, part of a new marketing push to connect with young consumers. The sponsorship will revolve around new KFC drink product KFC Krushers, with the creation of a KFC sponsored community called MySpace Music Real Bitz, a hub for premium video content such as interviews with artists backstage at music festivals.
Pedro DeMartini, marketing director at KFC, said: “KFC has already been a youthful brand and we wanted to contemporise the brand even further, and we wanted to find a digital platform which would give us a ongoing relationship with consumers, specifically 16 to 24 year olds.”
Nick Love, MySpace Australia executive director – business development, said the News Corporation-owned site is “focusing on its launch sponsors, so we can integrate them properly”. Love added that it had not approached the market with its next round of media packages yet, but wanted the sponsors to get “the value out of the integration”.
MySpace will launch a series of offline activities, as well as online, print and radio ads to promote the service, and also focus on public relations. Love said the social network had “never had any marketing budget before”.
Some celebrity playlists are already available including PM Kevin Rudd’s. His MySpace Music playlist includes “The Way You Look Tonight”by Frank Sinatra, “Fire and Rain” by John Denver, Handel’s “Messiah”, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, “From Little Things Big Things Grow” by Paul Kelly, “The Power and the Passion” by Midnight Oil and “My Happiness” by Powderfinger.
