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FanTrail App Provides New Marketing Avenues for Musicians

posted on March 3, 2011

For musicians, MySpace used to be the social network of choice, but now that the stands are empty over there, it’s sort of Facebook or nothing. Enter FanTrail, a new smartphone app with some exciting ideas about marketing to fans. Even if you’re not a musician, keep reading because there’s inspiration here for all of us.

FanTrail is a free application that allows a musician to communicate and sell to his fans on a variety of levels. For the fan, the app acts as a digital newsletter providing social media updates (which can all be updated at the same time with one click), a calendar of events and links to the musician’s music on iTunes. If a user buys through the app, the musician gets a percentage of the price over and above the royalty he makes from iTunes.

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Who Needs a Company Website When You Have Facebook?

posted on March 3, 2011

If you have a Facebook page with 21 million “likes,” do you really need a company website? Stephen Haines, commercial director of Facebook’s U.K. operation, says no!

Speaking at the Technology for Marketing and Advertising conference in London yesterday, Haines demonstrated the power of Facebook by comparing “likes” to web page views. For example, Starbucks who has 21.1 million likes to 1.8 million site visitors, or Coca-Cola who has 20.5 million likes compared with 270,000 visitors.

CNET, who covered the event, thought there was some merit to the idea.

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A&E Uses Augmented Reality to Market New Series

posted on March 2, 2011

If you’re in NYC on Thursday, March 3 and you happen to see a man in an orange prison jumpsuit, don’t call 911. Just dial up the Breakout Kings app on your iPhone and you could win a prize.

A&E is going all out with an augmented reality promo for their new prison break / conman series and I fear it will be the Mafia Wars incident all over again.

Though I’m sure the actors playing prisoners on the loose will be clearly marked with a Breakout Kings logo, certainly their presence in the city will cause some confusion and spark a few calls to the cops. Right? A&E is ready to take that chance maybe because even if they end up paying a fine to the city, it’ll only help them make bigger headlines.

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Women Love a Sensitive Man

posted on March 2, 2011

Don’t worry, you didn’t accidentally stumble upon a new relationship blog, this is still Marketing Pilgrim, but today we’re going to talk about the softer side of men. According to January’s Women and NBCU’s Brand Power Index, women are warming up to marketing campaigns that show men as emotional and sensitive.

Melissa Lavigne-Delville, VP of Trends and Strategic Insights for Women at NBCU says;

“After a year of advertising that touted the ‘alpha male,’ with campaigns like Dockers’ ‘Wear the Pants’ or Dodge’s ‘Man’s Last Stand,’ we are seeing a noticeable shift in the marketplace as brands break down gender stereotypes in their ads and portray a less traditional and more sensitive, family-centric male.”

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The Internet is Key for Community Involvement

posted on March 1, 2011

The internet is famous for its ability to connect us with people all over the world, but a new survey from the Pew Internet and American Life project shows that it’s also important on a local level.

The study, which was conducted in San Jose, Calif., Philadelphia and Macon, Ga. was designed to measure the effectiveness of local, community and civic communications.

The majority of respondents agreed that access to a broadband connection was very important and 34% said that having the internet majorly impacted their ability to participate in the community.

Oddly, the survey found that many people with broadband connections were more critical of their local government which could be based on the fact that they have more access to information. If you don’t see all the people complaining about the road construction, you may think the city is handling the issue just fine.

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Ad Trade Groups Set Out to Make Measurement Makes Sense

posted on March 1, 2011

Three top advertising trade agencies are banning together to work on a new initiative they call “Making Measurement Make Sense.” What they want to do is work out a new standard for measuring the success of digital advertising that can be used across the board.

The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and the 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies) announced their new initiative at IAB’s fourth Annual Leadership Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: The People vs. Data.

According to their press release, “Making Measurement Make Sense” has three primary objectives:

  • Define standard metrics and measurement systems that are transparent and consistent to simplify the planning, buying and evaluating of digital media:
    • Analyzing the current digital measurement situation from a business perspective

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Facebook: You’ll Share it and Like it!

posted on February 28, 2011

Let me share something with you. Facebook has changed the functionality of their “like” button on third-party sites so it acts pretty much like a “share” button. For marketers, this is good news because the action now carries with it, a photo and a summary paragraph making the link much more visible when it hits Facebook.

Here’s how it looks on Facebook when I clicked “like” on a Marketing Pilgrim article.

The downside for some, comes from the meaning of the words not the intent. I might share all the links I like, but I don’t always like all the links I share. It’s a categorical syllogism and it’s got some people worried that it will cause a drop off in clicks. I doubt it, since I don’t think most people had a clue what would happen when they clicked a “like” button before the change.