Passionland

Kalau octokers punya passionland, MTV punya MTV Sticky (www.mtvsticky.com) …

Untuk sign-up ke blogsite ini aja kita perlu approval dari adminnya, yah sama sih kurang lebih sama passionland, tapi kalo passionland bisa dibuka public, ini gak bisa… Pas sign-up pun kita juga mesti ngajuin alasan yang jelas kenapa mau ikutan… Dan kalau gue gak salah, gak semua diapprove sama adminnya…

Sedangkan untuk contentnya, MTV sticky ini kurang lebih kayak trend centre-nya MTV. Di blogsite ini staff MTV di seluruh dunia posting hal-hal yang dianggap deket dengan audiencenya MTV. Selain itu, blogsite ini tujuannya juga untuk filtering informasi. Jadi kan kita sering dapet spam atau berbagai forward-an, nah gak semuanya itu gak berguna kan… Jadi lewat MTV Sticky ini, membernya saling merekomendasikan artikel-artikel yang bagus dan worth to read/know.

Mungkin perbedaan MTV Sticky dengan blog kita ini ada di newsletter yang dipublish oleh MTV. Jadi dari tema-tema yang paling populer threadnya, MTV nyusun majalah per 3 bulanan dengan tema-tema tersebut. Tentunya, majalah itu juga ada value lebihnya, yaitu informasi-informasi tadi udah didukung oleh data riset…

Mungkin karena blogsite ini MTV tetep dekat dengan audiencenya, tapi mungkin juga nggak.. soalnya gue sih sekarang udah jarang banget nonton MTV secara isinya reality show, tapi mungkin gue udah gak masuk itungan target audiencenya mereka, ya gak?

Maybe this isn’t the first in Indonesia, i dunno… But Naif has joined the international ranks of Radiohead, Mars Volta and The White Stripes by selling their album on a USB device… Abroad, the price is waaay higher than a typical music album on a CD format, maybe as high as three times… To compensate, labels are inserting more artworks and of course, due to the format, they are able to include the music video in the album… But, there’s no release on how much Naif will sell their USB album yet, we’ll just have to wait for that one…

Apparently, Naif is copying or rather, applying what the big artists are doing abroad… last year, Prince released his album freely in England, bundled with The Evening Standard Saturday edition… by lunch time, the newspaper is nowhere to be found. HMV, the biggest record store in the UK, even bought 300 copies of the newspaper and reasoned that they are a music store, hence they can sell anything if it contains music, albeit the sell… As for Naif’s case, not so long ago, i think it was last month’s edition, Naif newest album “Let’s Go” was bundled with Rolling Stones magazine, and the same happened, the magazine was nowhere to be found in such short time… Now, although me or other people might not agree to the “music album for free” practice, but i can’t help but think, if i were rolling stones magazine i’d find other artists to do it again with… heck, my publication was a sold out!!

I bet all of you know The Sims and I suppose you’ve seen the brands embedded in the game. The Sims is just another “virtual world” that boomed in the last couple of years, especially in terms of product placement practice. Second Life players have seen Reebok and HMV stores online, The Sims provides H&M products and Ford cars, even Aeropostale, a clothing retailer, developed their own virtual world to engage with their customers.

BUT… how engaging could it be? do you actually go “real-world” shopping for the things you already owned “virtually”? does the placement actually generate sales?

Some brands have gone bust in the virtual world coz they claimed it didn’t generate any sales, nor brand loyalty. But others tried different rules of engagement. For example, H&M tries going a bit further from just placing their product, onto an online competition in designing a shirt and the winning shirt will be available in stores in “real-world”. Quoting Madison+Vine regarding the campaign - “It really is the ultimate in brand engagement,” said Steve Seabolt, VP-global brand development for “The Sims,” an Electronic Arts label game. “It really is a way to bring a product or a service into your virtual life, become familiar with it, play with it and, hopefully, incorporate it into your real life.”

I suppose we’ll have to wait for the impact.. I’d be really curious to see the sales figure for that one particular shirt in due time…