Advertisers Win Friends and Influence on MySpace

Posted on November 17, 2005

AdBumb offers an in-depth article (no longer available) about MySpace.com's emergence as an advertiser favorite. The article mentions campaigns from Nike, Panasonic, T-Mobile, EA Games, Discovery Channel and the movie Rent.

If MySpace was built on this concept of community, it only makes sense that marketers and advertisers should go with the flow to truly reach their target audience - and Nike's heeded that advice with their new Soccer campaign and profile. When asked for comment on their use of this marketing medium, Media Relations Manager Nate Tobecksen replied by email that though he wasn't at liberty to talk about the company's specific marketing tactics, "Nike is always looking for new and interesting ways to interact with our consumers, and the appearance in MySpace.com is another example of that."

And Nike is not alone in the MySpace medium. Panasonic has produced profiles for their new Oxyride product and Oxymite character, and EA Games has done one to promote their new SSX On Tour game. The Discovery Channel has joined the bunch, collecting some 14,000 friends in the process. And the soon to be released film "Rent" is on the space too: right now it's registering about 34,793 friends, most of whom have probably toyed with the profile's interactive contents which include contests, polls, actor info, forums, downloadables and on and on.

All the advertisers try to collect friends just like other MySpace members do. It includes character blogs, songs, wallpaper, screensavers, etc. They show over 36,000 friends. The SSX has 5,000+ friends. The Oxyride page on MySpace shows over 2,000 friends. The article didn't mention that MySpace also recently created its own music label which is yet another way for this rapidly developing brand to branch out from its free blogging and social networking service.