Music Ally

Orange is launching its big-budget marketing campaign for its new Monkey mobile music service today, kicking off with TV ads around Friends, Hollyoaks and Ugly Betty.

The ad takes the form of a pseudo weather report, pretending that genres of music are sweeping the UK (rock sweeping the north, etc etc). Which sounds a bit cheesy, but here’s the quite-interesting thing: the ads will be updated every couple of weeks to use real data from Monkey users’ listening habits. There’ll be an online version that’s updated every day, too.

The campaign also takes in contests on broadcast partner Channel 4’s various channels, starting with VIP tickets to see La Roux play Paris in early November. Outdoor ads and flyposters (hang on, aren’t flyposters illegal?) will also be plugging the Monkey playlists of La Roux, Lady GaGa and Tinchy Stryder, ensuring exclusive label partner UMG gets its dues.

And if that’s not enough marketing wheezes for you, Orange is promising “the UK’s first multi-artist holographic gig across five locations in the UK”. Nice. Monkey, as you may remember, is an IVR-based service where users dial in to listen to music from UMG acts, while building their own playlists on the online version.

Orange UK has teamed up with Universal Music Group and Channel 4 to launch a new unlimited mobile music service called Monkey.

However, it’s not downloads like Nokia’s Comes With Music, and it’s not streaming over the network like Spotify. Its 16-24 year-old target demographic will access the music via voice call.

It’s worth digging into the details. Monkey is aimed at the kind of young pay-as-you-go customers who are unlikely to have either an expensive mobile phone or a flat-rate data tariff. Hence the use of IVR as the delivery method.

“We didn’t want the service to be limited to high-end handsets,” Pippa Dunn, director of Pay As You Go at Orange UK tells Music Ally. “You can access this on all handsets, from those costing £9.99 upwards.”

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4music, the music TV channel launched last August by UK broadcaster Channel 4, and Box TV Network, has already captured 20% of all UK music TV viewing for 16-34 year-olds, it claimed today.

The channel is apparently the 25th most-watchec channel in the UK, and in Freeview homes, it’s the 12th most popular. However, head of T4 and music Neil McCallum says 4music isn’t stopping there.

“Our stated aim internally is that we want to be in the Top 10 digital channels,” he said at a press event this morning. When we think about competition, it’s nothing to do with MTV2 or MTV Base or Amp, Flaunt or other music channels. We’re talking about ITV2, BBC 3, Sky One, Living and Dave.”

McCallum also drew a direct comparison between 4music and MTV One. “Our channel is very much about music: it’s 90% music skewed, compared to MTV One which is less than 5%,” he said.

There’s been plenty of buzz around UMG artist Frankmusik this year, and now he’s doing something really interesting on the digital marketing front. It’s called Live & Lost, and is a tie-up between UMG, Channel 4 and MySpace.

It involves Frankmusik travelling around the UK on an “interactive tour”, with GPS being used to plot his position on a Google Map as he goes, and daily video updates on his MySpace profile. Or, as UMG describes it, it’s “part Logans Run, part reality TV, part human geocaching and part digital hall of mirrors”.

Fans can join in the fun by creating profiles and plotting their own positions on the map. It all culminates in a homecoming gig in Camden on 1 April, plus his proper debut single a few days later. You can watch it all go down on Frankmusik’s official website.

Simon Gavin is the head of A&M Records (part of Universal Music Group), whose current roster includes The Police, The Horrors, The Courteeners and Duffy. We spoke to him about his involvement in the series, and what makes it an interesting platform for artists and labels. (more…)

Last year UK broadcaster Channel4 launched Mobile Act Unsigned with Orange and Sony Ericsson: an interactive talent show bringing together broadcast TV, online and mobile. The show’s format works as an A&R platform where acts must test their mettle in the live arena in front of an audience and panel of judges, comprising Blur bassist Alex James, Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley and head of A&M records Simon Gavin. The winning act Envy and Other Sins walked away with an album deal with A&M UK (part of Universal Music Group), marketing support, management, a booking agent and merchandising deal. It returns this year, with the (slightly less catchy) title Orange Unsigned Act with Sony Ericsson. The premise is largely the same, but the competition is opening up to include singer/songwriters and urban acts. A transmission date is yet to be announced, but it is expected to launch in autumn.

Music Ally spoke to Simon Gavin and Sony Ericsson’s European head of music marketing about their involvement with the show, what they hope to get out of it, and what we can expect from the new series. (more…)