Captivating Connections.

is content bad for your budget?

There's something about seamlessly buying and downloading content like music, movies, and books that makes you forget you're actually spending (real) money on it. I used to be a major offender of, um, filesharing music, and now I can't stop buying random songs from iTunes. It all seems pretty harmless - a song here, a song there - until I get my bill and I realize just how much I racked up.

For some reason, until I get the bill, I forget I'm actually spending money on the content, and probably don't need all these songs I won't listen to after a week. Part of me thinks "meh, it's less than 1 or 2 dollars," while another part of me thinks "isn't that how people ruin their budgets? By minor purchases here and there?"

I'm not the only one concerned about this. According to AICPA, "more than 40% of Americans download and pay for digital content, and they’re spending more money on them than they ever have."

But do they have this money to spend? Jordin Amin, chair of the AICPA’s national CPA financial literacy, says it best when he says, “one of the concerns we have is that it’s very easy to make these purchases without a budget or an overall financial plan.”

It's true. Do people not 'count' content they download as a real purchase because it's not in tangible DVD, book, or CD form? One could argue that it's cheaper to buy a song vs. an album, or a digital version of a book than a physical paperback, but do we justify more purchases when they are only a tap or swpire away?

What do you think?

breaking down the eminem brisk spot.

I heart me some Eminem, and I really liked the Detroit spot last night, but the Brisk one annoyed me (and pretty much everyone else I talked to). 

So I found this AdAge breakdown of his two spots & integrated cultural strategy quite interesting...

It doesn't make me like the Brisk ad any more, but as both a music and marketing nerd it's always incredile to see a glimpse into the behind the scenes.

the role of mobile in entertaining kidlets.

"The majority of mobile entertainment devices used by parents and kids host less than 20 apps geared toward children, but about 7% host more than 60 apps for a child, according to The NPD Group Kids' Mobile Entertainment & Apps study released Monday.

Gaming is the most popular type of app downloaded, with the average mobile device used by a child containing approximately 10 game-related apps. Music ranked No. 2.

When it comes to overall downloads, however, music dominates and games moves to the No. 2 spot. Video steps in at No. 3.

Music makes up more than half of all downloads and about 61% of all child-related downloads to a mobile entertainment device. The remaining types of downloads, including ringtones, TV shows and movies, comprise less than 10% of all downloading activity.

Three top themes emerged in the study that keep kids coming back for more, and parents agreeing to allow the kids to download, listen to music and play games. Anita Frazier, industry analyst at The NPD Group, says these themes include the love of music, laughter to keep kids entertained, and fun and addicting applications. 'Parents are more willing to pay for apps when they think their kids will use them a lot,' she says."

so how IS vevo doing?

Vevo launched a while back to much press and hullabaloo (yes, I said hullabaloo). So how's it doing now?

"After a bumpy start, the site pulled in 226 million video views in its first full month in January, according to new data from Brightcove and video analytics firm TubeMogul.

That figure was ten times the 23 million views individual artist and label sites drew during the same period. Counting views coming from its YouTube channel, TubeMogul's David Burch said Vevo is now the most-trafficked video site.

Music video is the first topic Brightcove and TubeMogul are examining in what will be a series of quarterly reports analyzing different video industry segments. Brightcove says it's well-suited to the initial subject as the Web video platform behind the four major music labels -- Sony, Universal, Warner Music Group and EMI Music -- powering hundreds of label and artist sites and portals.

While individual artist and label sites don't attract the traffic as video-sharing sites, the study found they generate higher levels of engagement. Average viewing time across Brightcove-hosted artist/ label sites was one minute, 51 seconds compared to one minute, 12 seconds for syndicated video sites such as YouTube. (YouTube separately powers video on Vevo.)"

lady gaga & brand placement: the video.

Lady Gaga isn't exactly quiet when she drops a new track, or video for that matter.

Her latest, Telephone, is the center of attention for a lot of reasons, including the product placement (which always fascinates me)...

"At least nine different brands make appearances in the nine-minute music video, from Gaga's own Heartbeats headphones to a 'Beats Limited Edition' laptop, from HP Envy to 'telephone' partner Virgin Mobile, and from Miracle Whip and Wonder Bread to Diet Coke."

Here's what's cool:

"But despite the cornucopia of products, only a handful were paid placements, said Gaga's manager, Troy Carter, CEO of Coalition Media Group."

Check out the rest of the article here...

lady gaga as a social media all-star.

AdAge has an article featuring Lady Gagy in their Digital A-List 2010. Not bad for an NYUer...

So why'd she make the list? It's all about the digtal media savvy...

"As far as breakout musicians go, few artists have had quite the zero-awareness-to-ubiquity time-warp of Lady Gaga. And as far as brands go, few marketers of any kind have leveraged social media the way she has to drive sales of their core product -- in her case, albums and digital singles."

So, how'd she do it?

"How did a 23-year-old singer/songwriter achieve so much in so little time? Two words: social media.But she's also put a new-media spin on her distribution strategy. Sure, Gaga had a fair share of old-school artist development -- radio play -- to become the first artist to score four consecutive No. 1 singles from a debut album. The November premiere of her video for 'Bad Romance,' for example, debuted on LadyGaga.com before MTV or any other outlet could play it -- resulting in a Universal Music server crash, a Twitter trending topic that lasted all week and a cumulative 110 million (and counting) views on YouTube to date, more than any viral music video of yore (OK Go, anyone?) could ever claim. Vevo, a music video site co-founded by Universal Music Group, also recently reported a whopping 20% of its traffic came from just Lady Gaga videos -- as in 1 in 5 videos streamed on the site was likely to be a song such as 'Poker Face,' 'Just Dance' or'LoveGame.'"

are music games sales down?

Apparently, yes.

"According to data from market analyst NPD Group, sales of these games haven't met expectations. The Beatles game, while selling a respectable 800,000 units of its various versions so far, missed the 1 million mark analysts expected in just the first month after its September 9 debut. 'Guitar Hero 5' sold 500,000 units in its first month, compared with the 1.4 million 'Guitar Hero III' moved two years ago in its first month.

'DJ Hero,' the game that was meant to expand the category into the hip-hop genre, moved 123,000 units in the first few days after its late-October release, and analysts at Cowen & Co. slashed their sales forecast for the game from 1.6 million this year to 600,000.

So what happened to this once-promising category, which so many in the music industry looked to for much-needed revenue? According to Pachter, the answer is: Too many games with too much music in too short a time."

what's going on with digital music?

Apparently not all that much!

"Americans love buying digital music, but growth rates related to other digital music activities are leveling off, according to new research from Forrester.

Despite the best marketing efforts of companies like MySpace and Pandora, mainstream Americans still haven't taken to streaming music services, according to a survey of some 4,600 Americans, along with 13,000 Europeans.

For its part, Pandora says that about 65,000 new members sign up for the service every day.

Yet, only 18% of U.S. online adults -- approximately 40 million consumers -- listen to free streaming music online on a regular basis, a percentage that has remained fairly constant over the past few years. Meanwhile, only 3% of U.S. consumers have downloaded a music app for their phone.

'Bottom line,' Forrester concludes: 'Digital music revenue has not yet made up for the decline in CD sales.'"

vevo rocks a solid start.

"The music industry doesn't really do subtle, which is why the Vevo launch party in lower Manhattan on Dec. 8 had all the pomp and glitz of an internet launch party circa 1999.

Because three of four major labels are playing nicely in the venture, attendees got to see Bono sharing the stage with John Mayer, 50 Cent, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris, Lady Gaga and Queen Rania, just to name a few.

The difference between now and when Napster was decimating the music business is that the artists themselves fully realize what's at stake, even if they have a misplaced notion that advertising will save their ailing industry. 'Let's hope Vevo can help salvage something that used to be amazing,' Mariah Carey told the crowd.

One thing Vevo has going for it right out of the gate is quantifiable traffic. Somehow, Mr. Morris persuaded Mr. Schmidt to allow all YouTube views of Vevo videos to accrue to Vevo -- a move that will likely make it the No. 3 video site in the U.S. straight out of the gate. 'Now we have a platform, and it's our platform,' Mr. Morris said."

It'll be interesting to see how it fully unfolds in the next 6-8 months.

myspace gains imeem.

"MySpace's acquisition of imeem is complete. The company officially announced the transaction on its blog after weeks of speculation.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources with knowledge of the transaction say it was for less than the $1 million figure bandied about in earlier speculation. Also, the MySpace Music joint venture is the entity acquiring imeem, not the MySpace Inc. parent company.

The impact of the deal will be felt immediately. Starting tonight, imeem users will be redirected to MySpace Music. In the coming weeks, the company will migrate playlists created on imeem to MySpace Music profiles as well. On the business end, MySpace Music will also transfer imeem's ongoing ad campaigns on a case-by-case basis where possible.

Sources say MySpace Music is also very interested in imeem's mobile app and technologies. MySpace Music as yet has no mobile outlet, and extending the platform into the mobile space is of keen interest for the company in the year ahead."