Music Ally

Well, they’re probably hot pants rather than knickers, but she’ll still catch her death of cold…

Actually, Pixie Lott won’t, because she was presumably in a warm studio when filming this performance to promote Orange’s Monkey music service. Her hologram was then projected in shopping centres up and down the UK on a mini-tour.

Anyway, we were wondering what a hologram gig looked like, so this video answers our questions.

Mobile operator Orange UK has given more details on the “hologram gigs” to be held in the UK to promote its new Monkey music service.

They’ll take place in five shopping centres around the country in September and October, and will feature hologrammatic versions of Pixie Lott, N-Dubz and Tinchy Stryder performing. Free Monkey SIM cards will be available at each event, plus £10-off vouchers for the pay-as-you-go handsets required to use the service.

Monkey launched earlier this year, and is an exclusive partnership between Orange, UMG and Channel 4. “The Orange Monkey Hologram Gigs are an extension of this new music experience giving audiences the chance to see some of the UK’s hottest talent in a fresh and exciting way,” says brand director Spencer McHugh.

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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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Orange UK has announced that from today it will be selling DRM-free music downloads from its online and mobile music stores. As part of that change, it’s also introduced variable pricing – the same concession Apple made on its iTunes Store when that went DRM-free.

Orange has more than 700,000 DRM-free tracks available now, although it’s only signed up two major labels – Universal Music Group and EMI, plus various independents. No Warner Music Group or Sony for now, it seems. Meanwhile, Orange’s music store and overall music portal are being revamped to be easier to navigate around, with more information on events like Orange RockCorps, and handset offers like Nokia’s Comes With Music 5800.

That’s interesting, actually. Orange’s own music store is going DRM-free, but the portal it sits within will be advertising the still un-DRM-free Comes With Music handset. Is there potential for customer confusion there? Anyway, Orange’s director of products, portals and services Paul Jevons is talking up the changes.

“Orange is committed to providing customers with the widest access to music tracks and content. Upgrading the Music Portal and introducing DRM-free music helps customers enjoy music how and when they want. We look forward to enhancing the DRM-free music catalogue over the coming months.”

O2 UK is dropping the price of 3G iPhones in May, according to trade website Mobile, offering the handset for free on its £35 and £45 monthly tariffs.

The move is reportedly to clear stock in time for the launch of a new iPhone model (or models) in June or July – although Mobile reports that rival UK operator Orange is in talks to stock it too.

In separate news, Apple has invited media to an event next Tuesday for the unveiling of the iPhone 3.0 software – the latest firmware update for the device. No news on what features will be in it, but the ability for apps to run in the background has been hotly tipped, which could be good news for music applications.