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Honda sponsors Sony BMG music videos
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According to AdWeek, Sony BMG has put together a single-sponsor package for the advertising on their Music Box video portal.
While it’s great to see a major company making an investment in any part of the dying music industry, you have to wonder where their $500k to $1M (according to sources) could have been spent. Instead of actually helping create an experience that people would want to tell others about, they’re resorting to old-school interrupt advertising.
Here’s the general idea :
We here at Honda agree with the focus groups and corporate consensus of the Sony BMG Label Conglomerate on what is NEW and FRESH and are happy to present it to you right after we waste 15 seconds of your life with this commercial we’re going to force you to sit through before you get to the Cool-By-Committee Hot New Band Video Production.
I suppose you can’t blame them for just going with what they know - tack the Honda brand and logo onto what the big(gest) record label tells you is Neat and Nifty and The Next Big Thing - and you can make an argument that it’s a million well spent according to Business As Usual.
I just wish there were more creativity on this project, at both the advertising agency level and at the record label level. Seems like a million dollars is being dropped on the promotional equivalent of throwing a “Brought to you by Honda” sticker on some jewel cases… a Now That’s What I Call Music / This Is Next for the viral video set.
Wait a sec… viral?!
According to Amy Carney, president of advertiser sales, Sony Pictures Television, which is responsible for selling sponsorships in the Music Box service, the player is designed to encourage viral distribution of both the music and the Honda ads. “They are transportable,” she said. “They can be downloaded and pasted onto MySpace home pages” and other social networking sites and blogs, she added.
May I humbly point out (with a nod to my Burst cohort Matt)… advertising something as ‘viral’ does not necessarily make it so. In fact, you could make a pretty strong case that it will be exactly NOT that, due to the nature of a self-perpetuating Virus versus a Corporate Behemoth’s schemes.
Just my $0.02. Drop a comment below and join in. [dh]
judson @ burst says:
10/8/2007 -i’m feebly golf-clapping this hilariously late entry to the “Capitalize on Emerging Trends” party.
can you count all the misfires? so far i’m up to five.
1) these music projects are about as ‘emerging’ as honda itself. nothing new here.
2) no matter who the RIAA sues and wins, people are buying and stealing this music already.
3) listening to a ‘brought to you by honda’ message at the beginning of a song is going to work profoundly against them if the song isn’t any good, quadruply so if it’s bad.
4) i’m guessing that one would have to be online to listen to the song every time and would receive no personal copy of the file.
5) to daniel’s point - it’s not viral if you put something on the internet and say “it’s viral.” the only way this hilariously 2004-minded fantasia of outmodedness is viral is the context in which it exists right now: industry professionals who know better pointing at it, laughing and saying “what a bunch of fucktards.”
Matt says:
10/8/2007 -Actually, in a way, the Honda/Sony BMG coupling IS viral… but not in the way the execs would like you to believe. When they release the ads and cramp people’s ability to watch Avril LaVigne videos, the word will spread among the 5617 loyal MusicBox viewers that the ad execs at both Honda and Sony are soul-sucking dillholes that are desperately trying to “give the kids what the focus groups said they wanted”. That’s viral as hell, man.
I quote:
“In an effort to link its brand more closely to one of the strongest passions of its target audience—cutting-edge music—Honda is launching a unique campaign that will tie its Civic model to dozens of new songs and music videos being released throughout the fourth quarter by Sony BMG.”
The strongest passion of Honda customers is cutting-edge? What better way to sate their voracious appetites for music that presents them with something new and exciting than by shoving pre-roll ads down their throats before videos by such creative visionaries as (again I quote)-
“Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Dido, Alicia Keys, The Fray “.
That sounds like a TRL Top 4 from 5 years ago, with the Fray thrown in for those of us with wilder tastes.
Not to denigrate these artists or deny they all have some catchy songs, but CUTTING-EDGE?
Why doesn’t the industry just go back to charging $20 a CD and suing piraters. At least there was some honesty in that. We understand that the people that run big labels aren’t like us and probably detest the fact that they need us to buy their music to survive.
Putting a party hat on a corpse doth not a party make.
KY says:
10/8/2007 -Man, you guys are pissed!
I’m glad I’m on your side.
Wait, are you guys on my side?
Putting a party hat on my little fella doth make him look smaller.
daniel @ burst says:
10/8/2007 -Uh oh, Kyle found the comment button. Are you saying your “little fella” is a corpse?
KY says:
10/9/2007 -Man, that’s nasty dude.
Honda sponsors Sony BMG music videos-Download Music says:
1/3/2008 -[...] Arnold wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAccording to AdWeek, Sony BMG has put together a single-sponsor package for the advertising on their Music Box video portal. While it’s great to see a major company making an investment in any part of the dying music industry, … [...]