Honestly though, a great viral marketing campaign!

Since this campaign is built upon Filemobile’s Mediafactory platform, a number of “Engagement” factors can be measured, such as views, shares, digs, ratings, comments, etc…

A great article about this type of engagement, and how some are proposing to synthesize these metrics, is Terms of Engagement: Measuring the Active Consumer, by Mark Ghuneim.

One might assume, that the cream would rise to the top and the most engaging song  would indeed be the finest piece of music submitted.  I’m happy to say, that this clearly the case with Logan Aube’s opus entitled Hockey Scores. The statistics and comments speak for themselves:  Canadians have a very odd sense of humour. 

With the addition of a call-to-action in the widget, you can now extend your brand and drive traffic back to the mothership. Did we mention we record all stats including views, geo and sources? Nice!

Click on the share button and install on your profile!

The value of users creating content is that your customers can be participants, and interact with your message instead of just being spectators. With a well-considered moderation plan, this user-generated content (UGC) can create brand credibility via public advocacy.

Case in point: CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada presents Bring Home the Stanley Cup.

Videos posted by hockey fans (particularly the finalists – currently posted from last year’s campaign) display passion for the game of hockey, the history of the NHL and Stanley Cup, family values and national unity. What better messages for Canada’s National broadcaster, a network for the people and of the people (via tax dollars), and the National Hockey League, striving to present family-friendly entertainment to an ever-fickle, globalized consumer?  The winning videos are even shown during a HNIC broadcast.

Although this is a great example of brand-focused, successful UGC campaign, most user-generated content is just plain bad.

Sure we can get people to submit videos and even get those videos on broadcast, but most of it is unpalatable.

What other roles can users fill within the communications value chain besides that of content producers?

User-Generated Programming (UGP)

This is in the form of having users create their own playlists of “engineered content”. Joe or Jane Sixpack can create their own channels of content, whether it be highlights of her favourite sports team, his favourite heavy metal playlist, or news as she wants it: world, business then entertainment. Users will stay longer, consume more content and even watch ads, if they are getting what they want AND its easy to get it.

User-Distributed Programming (UDP)

This is more than letting users share items with friends, or even embedding your video on their MySpace or Facebook page. Once a user creates his custom programming, he should be able to watch it anywhere. Take for instance, a popular talent show on television. The user selects an “engineered playlist”, such as all content, the 5 most popular clips, last night’s highlights, etc; and places it on his iGoogle. Every time that show airs, he get his fix HOW he wants and WHERE he wants it. He is such a big fan that he filters a playlist by a particular contestant (or team, etc…) and places it on his Facebook to show everyone that he is a fan. Wrap a call to action around it, and you’ve got a tethered, programmable, interactive, advocated, customizable, traffic-driving super-widget that is hit-trackable back the source! How, you ask?

Note the difference between iGoogle and Facebook/MySpace. On iGoogle, I consume MY content. On Facebook/MySpace YOU consume MY content. Well, sort of. Here is a great quote from Family Guy’s Stewie Griffin, trying to impress a high school girl:

“I took a bunch of pictures, you can see them on my MySpace page along with my favourite songs and movies and things that other people have created that I use to express my individualism.”

Although “Digital Tech Consulting expects online media stores to generate $7 billion in revenues by 2008, up from under $250 million in 2003”(IT Facts, 2004), the digitally distributed product requires additional marketing, promotion and technology spending and there is no evidence that digital sales will produce enough revenue to cover these new expenses. It has also been suggested that since “record companies are taking such a large cut from tracks sold online that many of the burgeoning online music stores will go out of business”(Andrew Orlowski and Charles Arthur, 2004). This is not sustainable and hence, not beneficial to any of the players in the long term. This will become more significant if major labels decide to raise the wholesale prices of songs that they claim “were originally set artificially low in a bid to stimulate demand.” (CNN Money, 2005)

The authors make subjective claims and provide no supporting bibliographical references therefore affecting the reliability of their conclusions. Two sentences in particular stand out: “Audiophiles claim there is loss of quality, but most people hear no difference in quality with digital music vs. a physical CD.” There is no qualitative evidence of audiophiles ‘claims’ and no definition of ‘quality’. Within the same paragraph, the authors claim that “recording or “ripping” digital music at 96kbs or higher provides similar audio quality as a physical CD”, again with no references to listening tests or that “similar quality” in this case, is lower quality. According to a PC World double-blind listening test, “the lowest rate that is really usable for MP3 is 128 kbps; any lower, and the quality begins to suffer significantly.” (Baguley, 2001)

The basis for much of this future model is the successful implementation of digital rights management (DRM). It remains to be seen how effective these encryption schemes will be. Technology experts believe that DRM for digital music, however applied, is fallible. One such expert believes that “given a functioning implementation of [DRM] technologies, we are confident we can defeat them”. (Felton et al, 2001) There is also always the possibility that anything that can be heard of seen can be rerecorded using a high quality signal path and digitized free of DRM with minimal loss of quality. The articles conclusions also lack practicality due to assumptions related to the creation of an IP Rights Enforcement Body. This fictitious group is described as “legal bodies [who] contribute to the value chain by enforcing IP rights and fighting piracy”. Whether the RIAA suing Napster creates value or not, is debatable.

“The Move to Artist-Led Online Music Distribution” which was chosen to be part of the Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference of System Sciences, fills a need within the music industry for a description of potential roles in the future for both music and technology players. The explanation uses specific, real-life examples to illustrate the application of abstract business proposals. However, the validity of the conclusion is put in question by the use of highly subjective interpretation of evidence and editorial. The arbitrary inclusion and exclusion of actors within the model, such as P2P as a viable marketing platform and the addition of a non-existent IP Rights Enforcement agency described as “legal bodies [who] contribute to the value chain by enforcing IP rights and fighting piracy”, suggests significant bias toward RIAA interests and hence, impacts the reliability of the conclusion.

Since 2006, we have seen the majors pulling out all the stops on the Internet.  They have married and divorced iTunes, ripped down and posted content to YouTube, and generally throwed everything at the kitchen sink to see what sticks.  The sticky question: “How do we get money from these free-loading deadbeats?”

One of the more recent endeavours is trying to sell DRM-free music.  I believe that this is a subtle way for the labels to admit that what sounded sensible a few years ago simply didn’t work and annoyed people with limited device interoperability.  It’s not that they have given up, but that they have realized that the recorded track is now a loss leader; most practically for the youth demographic most likely to steal their wares.  MP3s are now the perfect viral marketing vehicle for the product: the artist.